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[ "Alaska Natives", "Russian colonial period", "When was the Russian colonial period?", "Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives.", "What did they trade?", "Rather than hunting the marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them.", "What did they hunt?", "I don't know.", "What else was significant during the Russian colonial period?", "Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut", "How did they benefit?", "urged her subjects to treat them fairly. On some islands and parts of the Alaska Peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants.", "When did this period end?", "I don't know." ]	C_ea76d8cb68544f4eba487ac9acc63b00_1	What else is notable about this time period?	7	What else is notable about Russian colonial time period other than Catherine's good will proclaim toward the Aleut?	Alaska Natives	Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives. New settlements around trading posts were started by Russians, including Russian Orthodox missionaries. These were the first to translate Christian scripture into Native languages. British and American traders generally did not reach the area until the nineteenth century, and in some cases missionaries were not active until the twentieth century. In the 21st century, the numerous congregations of Russian Orthodox Christians in Alaska are generally composed mostly of Alaska Natives. Rather than hunting the marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them. As word spread of the riches in furs to be had, competition among Russian companies increased and they forced the Aleuts into slavery. Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut and urged her subjects to treat them fairly. On some islands and parts of the Alaska Peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants. Other groups could not manage the tensions. Russians took hostages, families were split up, and individuals were forced to leave their villages and settle elsewhere. The growing competition between the trading companies, merging into fewer, larger and more powerful corporations, created conflicts that aggravated the relations with the indigenous populations. Over the years, the situation became catastrophic for the natives. As the animal populations declined, the Aleuts, already too dependent on the new barter economy created by the Russian fur trade, were increasingly coerced into taking greater risks in the dangerous waters of the North Pacific to hunt for more otter. As the Shelikhov-Golikov Company and later Russian-American Company developed as a monopoly, it used skirmishes and systematic violence as a tool of colonial exploitation of the indigenous people. When the Aleut revolted and won some victories, the Russians retaliated, killing many and destroying their boats and hunting gear, leaving them no means of survival. The most devastating effects were from disease: during the first two generations (1741/1759-1781/1799 AD) of Russian contact, 80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases. These were then endemic among the Europeans, but the Aleut had no immunity against the new diseases. CANNOTANSWER	80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases.	Alaska Natives or Alaskan Natives are indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures. They are often defined by their language groups. Many Alaska Natives are enrolled in federally recognized Alaska Native tribal entities, who in turn belong to 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations, who administer land and financial claims. Ancestors of Alaska Natives migrated into the area thousands of years ago, in at least two different waves. Some are descendants of the third wave of migration, in which people settled across the northern part of North America. They never migrated to southern areas. For this reason, genetic studies show they are not closely related to native peoples in South America. Alaska Natives came from Asia. Anthropologists have stated that their journey from Asia to Alaska was made possible through the Bering land bridge or by traveling through the sea. Throughout the Arctic and the circumpolar north, the ancestors of Alaska Natives established varying indigenous, complex cultures that have succeeded each other over time. They developed sophisticated ways to deal with the challenging climate and environment. Historic groups have been defined by their languages, which belong to several major language families. Today, Alaska Natives constitute more than 15% of the population of Alaska. List of peoples Below is a full list of the different Alaska Native peoples, who are largely defined by their historic languages (within each culture are different tribes): Ancient Beringian Alaskan Athabaskans Ahtna Deg Hit'an Dena'ina Gwich'in Hän Holikachuk Koyukon Lower Tanana Tanacross Upper Tanana Upper Kuskokwim (Kolchan) Eyak Tlingit Haida Tsimshian Eskimo Iñupiat, an Inuit group Yupik Siberian Yupik Yup'ik Cup'ik Nunivak Cup'ig Sugpiaq ~ Alutiiq Chugach Sugpiaq Koniag Alutiiq Aleut (Unangan) Demographics The Alaska Natives Commission estimated there were about 86,000 Alaska Natives living in Alaska in 1990, with another 17,000 who lived outside Alaska. A 2013 study by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development documented more than 120,000 Alaska Native people in Alaska. While the majority of Alaska Natives live in small villages or remote regional hubs such as Nome, Dillingham, and Bethel, the percentage who live in urban areas has been increasing. In 2010, 44% lived in urban areas, compared to 38% in the 2000 census. As of 2018, natives constitute 15.4% of the overall Alaskan population. History The modern history of Alaskan natives begins with the arrival of Europeans. Unusually for North America, Russians sailing from Siberia in the eighteenth century were the first to make contact. British and American traders, coming mostly from eastern settlements in North America, generally did not reach the area until the nineteenth century. In some cases, Christian missionaries were not active in Alaska until the twentieth century. Russian colonial period During an expedition, Vitus Bering spotted Alaska. Alaskan Natives first came into contact with Russians in the 18th century. Time of contact with Russians varied throughout each native group since the Alaskan natives groups were spread throughout Alaska. Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives in what became known as the Aleutian Islands. They started new settlements around trading posts, and Russian Orthodox missionaries were part of these. The Russian missionaries were the first persons to translate Christian scripture into Native languages, such as Tlingit. In the 21st century, the numerous congregations of Russian Orthodox Christians in Alaska reflect this early history, as they are generally composed mostly of Alaska Natives. Rather than hunting and harvesting marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them. As word spread of the riches in furs to be had, competition among Russian companies increased. They forced the Aleuts into slavery. Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut and urged her subjects to treat them fairly. The growing competition between the trading companies, which merged into fewer, larger and more powerful corporations, created conflicts that aggravated the relations with the indigenous populations. Over the years, the situation became catastrophic for the natives. As the animal populations declined, the Aleuts, already dependent on the new barter economy created by their fur trade with the Russians, were increasingly coerced into taking greater risks in the dangerous waters of the North Pacific to hunt for more otter. As the Shelikhov-Golikov Company and later Russian-American Company developed as a monopoly, it used skirmishes and systematic violence as a tool of colonial exploitation of the indigenous people. When the Aleut revolted and won some victories, the Russians retaliated, killing many. They also destroyed the peoples' boats and hunting gear, leaving them no means of survival. The greatest mortality was caused by the Aleuts' encounters with new diseases: during the first two generations (1741/1759-1781/1799 AD) of Russian contact, 80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases. These had been endemic among the Europeans for centuries, but the Aleut had no immunity against the new diseases. Effects of Russian colonization The Russian Tsarist government expanded into Indigenous territory in present-day Alaska for its own geopolitical reasons. It consumed natural resources of the territory during the trading years, and Russian Orthodoxy was evangelized. Their movement into these populated areas of Indigenous communities altered the demographic and natural landscape. Historians have suggested that the Russian-American Company exploited Indigenous peoples as a source of inexpensive labor. The Russian-American Company not only used Indigenous populations for labor during the fur trade, but also held some as hostages to acquire iasak. Iasak, a form of taxation imposed by the Russians, was a tribute in the form of otter pelts. It was a taxation method the Russians had previously found useful in their early encounter with Indigenous communities of Siberia during the Siberian fur trade. Beaver pelts were also customary to be given to fur traders upon first contact with various communities. The Russian-American Company used military force on Indigenous families, taking them as hostage until male community members produced furs for them. Otter furs on Kodiak Island and Aleutian Islands enticed the Russians to start these taxations. Robbery and maltreatment in the form of corporal punishment and the withholding of food was also present upon the arrival of fur traders. Catherine the Great dissolved the giving of tribute in 1799, but her government initiated mandatory conscription of Indigenous men between the ages of 18 to 50 to become seal hunters strictly for the Russian American Company. This mandatory labor gave the Russian American Company an edge in competition with American and British fur traders. But the conscription separated men from their families and villages, thus altering and breaking down communities. With able-bodied men away on the hunt, villages were left with little protection as only women, children, and the elderly remained behind. In addition to changes that came with conscription, the spread of disease also altered the populations of Indigenous communities. Although records kept in the period were scarce, it has been said that 80% of the pre-contact population of the Aleut people were gone by 1800. Relationships between Indigenous women and fur traders increased as Indigenous men were away from villages. This resulted in marriages and children that would come to be known as Creole peoples, children who were Indigenous and Russian. To reduce hostilities with Aleutian communities, it became policy for fur traders to enter into marriage with Indigenous women. The Creole population increased in the territory controlled by the Russian American Company. The growth of the Russian Orthodox Church was another important tactic in the colonization and conversion of Indigenous populations. Ioann Veniaminov, who later became Saint Innocent of Alaska, was an important missionary who carried out the Orthodox Church's agenda to Christianize Indigenous populations. The church encouraged Creole children to follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, while the Russian American Company provided them with an education. Creole people were believed to have high levels of loyalty toward the Russian crown and Russian American Company. After completing their education, children were often sent to Russia, where they would study skills such as mapmaking, theology, and military intelligence. In the 1850's Russia lost much of its interest on Alaska. American colonialism Alaska has many natural resources. Alaska's natural resources along with its gold caught the attention of the United States. In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. It did not consider the wishes of Alaska Natives or view them as citizens. The land that belonged to Alaska Natives was considered to be "open land", which could be claimed by white settlers without redress to the Alaska Natives living there. The only schools for Alaska Natives were those founded by religious missionaries. Most white settlers did not understand the sophisticated cultures the Alaska Natives had developed to live in that challenging place and considered them to be inferior to European Americans. The Americans imposed racial segregation and what were effectively Jim Crow laws applied against the Alaska Natives and treating them as second-class residents. Since Jim Crow law were imposed, it led to segregation amongst Alaskan Natives and Americans. Buildings would even have signs saying that no natives were allowed. There was also segregated schools. In 1880, there was a court case where a child was not allowed to attend a school with Americans because his step father was native. A child that was part native and part American would only be allowed to attend a school with American children if the family has abandoned their culture. This means that they could no longer speak their native language, wear traditional native clothing, be amongst other natives, eat native foods, or practice any native religion. In 1912, the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) was formed to help fight for citizenship rights. The Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) was created in 1915. Also in 1915, the Alaska Territorial legislature passed a law allowing Alaskan Natives the right to vote - but on the condition that they give up their cultural customs and traditions. The Indian Citizenship Act, passed in 1924, gave all Native Americans United States citizenship. ANB began to hold a great deal of political power in the 1920s. They protested the segregation of Alaska Natives in public areas and institutions, and also staged boycotts. Alberta Schenck (Inupiaq) staged a well-publicized protest against segregation in a movie theater in 1944. With the help of Elizabeth Peratrovich (Tlingit), the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 was passed, ending segregation in Alaska. In 1942, during World War II, the United States forced evacuation of around nine hundred Aleuts from the Aleutian Islands. The idea was to remove the Aleuts from a potential combat zone during World War II for their own protection, but European Americans living in the same area were not forced to leave. The removal was handled so poorly that many Aleuts died after they were evacuated; the elderly and children had the highest mortality rates. Survivors returned to the islands to find their homes and possessions destroyed or looted. Alaska became part of the United States in 1959 upon President Dwight D. Eisenhower recognizing Alaska as the 49th state. ANCSA and since (1971 to present) In 1971, with the support of Alaska Native leaders such as Emil Notti, Willie Hensley, and Byron Mallot, the U.S. Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which settled land and financial claims for lands and resources which the Alaska Natives had lost to European-Americans. It provided for the establishment of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations to administer those claims. Similar to the separately defined status of the Canadian Inuit and First Nations in Canada, which are recognized as distinct peoples, in the United States, Alaska Natives are in some respects treated separately by the government from other Native Americans in the United States. This is in part related to their interactions with the U.S. government which occurred in a different historic period than its interactions during the period of westward expansion during the 19th-century. Europeans and Americans did not have sustained encounters with the Alaska Natives until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when many were attracted to the region in gold rushes. The Alaska Natives were not allotted individual title in severalty to land under the Dawes Act of 1887 but were instead treated under the Alaska Native Allotment Act of 1906. It was repealed in 1971, following ANSCA, at which time reservations were ended. Another characteristic difference is that Alaska Native tribal governments do not have the power to collect taxes for business transacted on tribal land, per the United States Supreme Court decision in Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government (1998). Except for the Tsimshian, Alaska Natives no longer hold reservations but do control some lands. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, Alaska Natives are reserved the right to harvest whales and other marine mammals. Climate Change Four indigenous tribes in Alaska, the Shishmaref, Kivalina, Shaktoolik and Newtok tribes, are being considered the first climate refugees for America, due to sea ice melting and increased wildfires in the regions (Bronen and Brubaker). The effects of climate change on the people of Alaska are extensive and include issues such as increased vulnerability to disease, mental health issues, injury, food insecurity, and water insecurity (Brubaker). According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the loss of sea ice will increase erosion area and further displace more native communities. The melting sea ice will also affect the migration of some animals that the tribes rely on and with the ice melting there will be no place to store the food that they do obtain (EPA). Due to the permafrost melting, the infrastructure that has been around in the past will become unstable and native villages will collapse (EPA). The Shishmaref, Kivalina, Shaktoolik and Newtok tribes are located on the west coast of Alaska and due to sea-level rise the villages are experiencing more severe storm surges that are eroding their coastlines (Bronen). There is no land for these tribes to move to that are already in the area they live in which forces these communities to migrate and change their whole way of living (Bronen). Governments are lacking in response to climate refugees, there are no policies in place to determine where these refugees should go or if they get aid to pay for the cost of traveling (Bronen). It is predicted that a climate event will submerge the tribes completely in less than fifteen years (Bronen). Extreme weather conditions has increased the risk of injury, usually there are thick layers of ice all year long but due to increasing temperatures in the atmosphere and the sea the ice in becoming thinner and is increasing the number of people who fall through the ice, if a person survives falling through the ice they are faced with other health concerns (Brubaker). Increased water insecurity and failing infrastructure caused by climate change has created sanitation issues which has increased the amount of respiratory illnesses in many regions in Alaska, in 2005 pneumonia was the leading cause of hospitalizations (Brubaker). Many of the affected tribes are experiencing increased mental stress due to climate change and the problem of relocating but no policy or way to relocate (Brubaker). Stress has also increased on villages who face infrastructure damage due to melting permafrost, there are almost no regulations other than the Alaskan government recommended not building on permafrost or using extra layers of insulation that is used on foundation walls (EPA). Food insecurity has also created stress and health issues, families can not get enough food due to animals also relocating to get to a climate that is more suitable to them (Brubaker). Families also do not have a secure food system because their ways of storing food, underground ice cellar, are no longer frozen year long due to climate change, their cellars thaw in the summers leaving their food supply inedible (Brubaker). Subsistence Gathering of subsistence food continues to be an important economic and cultural activity for many Alaska Natives. In Utqiaġvik, Alaska in 2005, more than 91 percent of the Iñupiat households which were interviewed still participated in the local subsistence economy, compared with the approximately 33 percent of non-Iñupiat households who used wild resources obtained from hunting, fishing, or gathering. But, unlike many tribes in the contiguous United States, Alaska Natives do not have treaties with the United States that protect their subsistence rights, except for the right to harvest whales and other marine mammals. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act explicitly extinguished aboriginal hunting and fishing rights in the state of Alaska. See also Ancient Beringian List of Alaska Native Tribal Entities, the list of Native Villages and other "tribal entities" recognized by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. Prehistory of Alaska First Alaskans Institute Indigenous Amerindian genetics Circumpolar peoples Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic Indigenous peoples of Siberia Alaska Native Storytelling Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 Shamanism among Alaska Natives Women's suffrage in Alaska References Sources Further reading Chythlook-Sifsof, Callan J. "Native Alaska, Under Threat." (Op-Ed) The New York Times. June 27, 2013. External links Alaska Federation of Natives Alaska Native Health Board Alaska Native Heritage Center Alaska Native Language Center First Alaskans Institute Tlingit National Anthem, Alaska Natives Online Arctic Studies Center American culture	true	[ "\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer", "Delivery performance (DP) is a broadly used standard KPI measurement in supply chains to measure the fulfillment of a customers demand to the wish date. Following the nomenclature of the DR-DP-Matrix three main approaches to measure DP can be distinguished:\n\nType of measurement: volume (V)/singular(S)\nType of view: on time (T)/ delivery (D)\n\nVolume/on time\n\nFormula\nIf ()\n = \nElse\nNULL\n\nDemand:= customers wish\nc:= product identifier\np:= Time period e.g. a day, a week, a month ...\n\nThe cumulation over a period and a group of product identifiers c is done as follows:\n\nwhereas p is determined by demand period\n\nSingular/delivery and singular/on time\n\nSingular case definition\nTo fit to the needs of the environment, the granularity of a singular case () has to be defined. In general a singular case is described by a n-Tuple consisting of a set of the following order and delivery details:\n order number\n customer identifier\n product identifier\n wish date of customer\n confirmed date of supplier\n ship to information\n delivery date\n delivery note number\n\nFormula\n\nAfter a singular case has been delivered to the customer its DP is measured as follows:\nIf (wish date = arrival date) then\n DPsingular case=1\nelse\n DPsingular case=0\n\narrival date = delivery date + transit time\n\nBy cumulating the results of singular cases over a certain period p and, if necessary, additional criteria c (e.g. customer, product, ...) the delivery performance is calculated as follows:\n\nwhereas p is determined by the arrival date\n\nAfter a period has elapsed all singular cases with wish date within period are considered and their DP is measured as follows:\nIf (wish date = arrival date) then\n DRsingular case=1\nelse\n DRsingular case=0\n\narrival date = delivery date + transit time\n\nBy cumulating the results of singular cases over a certain period p and, if necessary, additional criteria c (e.g. customer, product, ...) the delivery performance is calculated as follows:\n\nwhereas p is determined by the first confirmed date\n\nResult\n\n0%≤≤100%\n\nReferences\n\nSee also\n\nDelivery reliability\n\nSupply chain management" ]
[ "Alaska Natives", "Russian colonial period", "When was the Russian colonial period?", "Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives.", "What did they trade?", "Rather than hunting the marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them.", "What did they hunt?", "I don't know.", "What else was significant during the Russian colonial period?", "Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut", "How did they benefit?", "urged her subjects to treat them fairly. On some islands and parts of the Alaska Peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants.", "When did this period end?", "I don't know.", "What else is notable about this time period?", "80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases." ]	C_ea76d8cb68544f4eba487ac9acc63b00_1	What was the impact of this?	8	What was the impact of Eurasian infectious diseases on Aleut Population?	Alaska Natives	Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives. New settlements around trading posts were started by Russians, including Russian Orthodox missionaries. These were the first to translate Christian scripture into Native languages. British and American traders generally did not reach the area until the nineteenth century, and in some cases missionaries were not active until the twentieth century. In the 21st century, the numerous congregations of Russian Orthodox Christians in Alaska are generally composed mostly of Alaska Natives. Rather than hunting the marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them. As word spread of the riches in furs to be had, competition among Russian companies increased and they forced the Aleuts into slavery. Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut and urged her subjects to treat them fairly. On some islands and parts of the Alaska Peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants. Other groups could not manage the tensions. Russians took hostages, families were split up, and individuals were forced to leave their villages and settle elsewhere. The growing competition between the trading companies, merging into fewer, larger and more powerful corporations, created conflicts that aggravated the relations with the indigenous populations. Over the years, the situation became catastrophic for the natives. As the animal populations declined, the Aleuts, already too dependent on the new barter economy created by the Russian fur trade, were increasingly coerced into taking greater risks in the dangerous waters of the North Pacific to hunt for more otter. As the Shelikhov-Golikov Company and later Russian-American Company developed as a monopoly, it used skirmishes and systematic violence as a tool of colonial exploitation of the indigenous people. When the Aleut revolted and won some victories, the Russians retaliated, killing many and destroying their boats and hunting gear, leaving them no means of survival. The most devastating effects were from disease: during the first two generations (1741/1759-1781/1799 AD) of Russian contact, 80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases. These were then endemic among the Europeans, but the Aleut had no immunity against the new diseases. CANNOTANSWER	These were then endemic among the Europeans, but the Aleut had no immunity against the new diseases.	Alaska Natives or Alaskan Natives are indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures. They are often defined by their language groups. Many Alaska Natives are enrolled in federally recognized Alaska Native tribal entities, who in turn belong to 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations, who administer land and financial claims. Ancestors of Alaska Natives migrated into the area thousands of years ago, in at least two different waves. Some are descendants of the third wave of migration, in which people settled across the northern part of North America. They never migrated to southern areas. For this reason, genetic studies show they are not closely related to native peoples in South America. Alaska Natives came from Asia. Anthropologists have stated that their journey from Asia to Alaska was made possible through the Bering land bridge or by traveling through the sea. Throughout the Arctic and the circumpolar north, the ancestors of Alaska Natives established varying indigenous, complex cultures that have succeeded each other over time. They developed sophisticated ways to deal with the challenging climate and environment. Historic groups have been defined by their languages, which belong to several major language families. Today, Alaska Natives constitute more than 15% of the population of Alaska. List of peoples Below is a full list of the different Alaska Native peoples, who are largely defined by their historic languages (within each culture are different tribes): Ancient Beringian Alaskan Athabaskans Ahtna Deg Hit'an Dena'ina Gwich'in Hän Holikachuk Koyukon Lower Tanana Tanacross Upper Tanana Upper Kuskokwim (Kolchan) Eyak Tlingit Haida Tsimshian Eskimo Iñupiat, an Inuit group Yupik Siberian Yupik Yup'ik Cup'ik Nunivak Cup'ig Sugpiaq ~ Alutiiq Chugach Sugpiaq Koniag Alutiiq Aleut (Unangan) Demographics The Alaska Natives Commission estimated there were about 86,000 Alaska Natives living in Alaska in 1990, with another 17,000 who lived outside Alaska. A 2013 study by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development documented more than 120,000 Alaska Native people in Alaska. While the majority of Alaska Natives live in small villages or remote regional hubs such as Nome, Dillingham, and Bethel, the percentage who live in urban areas has been increasing. In 2010, 44% lived in urban areas, compared to 38% in the 2000 census. As of 2018, natives constitute 15.4% of the overall Alaskan population. History The modern history of Alaskan natives begins with the arrival of Europeans. Unusually for North America, Russians sailing from Siberia in the eighteenth century were the first to make contact. British and American traders, coming mostly from eastern settlements in North America, generally did not reach the area until the nineteenth century. In some cases, Christian missionaries were not active in Alaska until the twentieth century. Russian colonial period During an expedition, Vitus Bering spotted Alaska. Alaskan Natives first came into contact with Russians in the 18th century. Time of contact with Russians varied throughout each native group since the Alaskan natives groups were spread throughout Alaska. Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives in what became known as the Aleutian Islands. They started new settlements around trading posts, and Russian Orthodox missionaries were part of these. The Russian missionaries were the first persons to translate Christian scripture into Native languages, such as Tlingit. In the 21st century, the numerous congregations of Russian Orthodox Christians in Alaska reflect this early history, as they are generally composed mostly of Alaska Natives. Rather than hunting and harvesting marine life, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them. As word spread of the riches in furs to be had, competition among Russian companies increased. They forced the Aleuts into slavery. Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleut and urged her subjects to treat them fairly. The growing competition between the trading companies, which merged into fewer, larger and more powerful corporations, created conflicts that aggravated the relations with the indigenous populations. Over the years, the situation became catastrophic for the natives. As the animal populations declined, the Aleuts, already dependent on the new barter economy created by their fur trade with the Russians, were increasingly coerced into taking greater risks in the dangerous waters of the North Pacific to hunt for more otter. As the Shelikhov-Golikov Company and later Russian-American Company developed as a monopoly, it used skirmishes and systematic violence as a tool of colonial exploitation of the indigenous people. When the Aleut revolted and won some victories, the Russians retaliated, killing many. They also destroyed the peoples' boats and hunting gear, leaving them no means of survival. The greatest mortality was caused by the Aleuts' encounters with new diseases: during the first two generations (1741/1759-1781/1799 AD) of Russian contact, 80 percent of the Aleut population died from Eurasian infectious diseases. These had been endemic among the Europeans for centuries, but the Aleut had no immunity against the new diseases. Effects of Russian colonization The Russian Tsarist government expanded into Indigenous territory in present-day Alaska for its own geopolitical reasons. It consumed natural resources of the territory during the trading years, and Russian Orthodoxy was evangelized. Their movement into these populated areas of Indigenous communities altered the demographic and natural landscape. Historians have suggested that the Russian-American Company exploited Indigenous peoples as a source of inexpensive labor. The Russian-American Company not only used Indigenous populations for labor during the fur trade, but also held some as hostages to acquire iasak. Iasak, a form of taxation imposed by the Russians, was a tribute in the form of otter pelts. It was a taxation method the Russians had previously found useful in their early encounter with Indigenous communities of Siberia during the Siberian fur trade. Beaver pelts were also customary to be given to fur traders upon first contact with various communities. The Russian-American Company used military force on Indigenous families, taking them as hostage until male community members produced furs for them. Otter furs on Kodiak Island and Aleutian Islands enticed the Russians to start these taxations. Robbery and maltreatment in the form of corporal punishment and the withholding of food was also present upon the arrival of fur traders. Catherine the Great dissolved the giving of tribute in 1799, but her government initiated mandatory conscription of Indigenous men between the ages of 18 to 50 to become seal hunters strictly for the Russian American Company. This mandatory labor gave the Russian American Company an edge in competition with American and British fur traders. But the conscription separated men from their families and villages, thus altering and breaking down communities. With able-bodied men away on the hunt, villages were left with little protection as only women, children, and the elderly remained behind. In addition to changes that came with conscription, the spread of disease also altered the populations of Indigenous communities. Although records kept in the period were scarce, it has been said that 80% of the pre-contact population of the Aleut people were gone by 1800. Relationships between Indigenous women and fur traders increased as Indigenous men were away from villages. This resulted in marriages and children that would come to be known as Creole peoples, children who were Indigenous and Russian. To reduce hostilities with Aleutian communities, it became policy for fur traders to enter into marriage with Indigenous women. The Creole population increased in the territory controlled by the Russian American Company. The growth of the Russian Orthodox Church was another important tactic in the colonization and conversion of Indigenous populations. Ioann Veniaminov, who later became Saint Innocent of Alaska, was an important missionary who carried out the Orthodox Church's agenda to Christianize Indigenous populations. The church encouraged Creole children to follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, while the Russian American Company provided them with an education. Creole people were believed to have high levels of loyalty toward the Russian crown and Russian American Company. After completing their education, children were often sent to Russia, where they would study skills such as mapmaking, theology, and military intelligence. In the 1850's Russia lost much of its interest on Alaska. American colonialism Alaska has many natural resources. Alaska's natural resources along with its gold caught the attention of the United States. In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. It did not consider the wishes of Alaska Natives or view them as citizens. The land that belonged to Alaska Natives was considered to be "open land", which could be claimed by white settlers without redress to the Alaska Natives living there. The only schools for Alaska Natives were those founded by religious missionaries. Most white settlers did not understand the sophisticated cultures the Alaska Natives had developed to live in that challenging place and considered them to be inferior to European Americans. The Americans imposed racial segregation and what were effectively Jim Crow laws applied against the Alaska Natives and treating them as second-class residents. Since Jim Crow law were imposed, it led to segregation amongst Alaskan Natives and Americans. Buildings would even have signs saying that no natives were allowed. There was also segregated schools. In 1880, there was a court case where a child was not allowed to attend a school with Americans because his step father was native. A child that was part native and part American would only be allowed to attend a school with American children if the family has abandoned their culture. This means that they could no longer speak their native language, wear traditional native clothing, be amongst other natives, eat native foods, or practice any native religion. In 1912, the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) was formed to help fight for citizenship rights. The Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) was created in 1915. Also in 1915, the Alaska Territorial legislature passed a law allowing Alaskan Natives the right to vote - but on the condition that they give up their cultural customs and traditions. The Indian Citizenship Act, passed in 1924, gave all Native Americans United States citizenship. ANB began to hold a great deal of political power in the 1920s. They protested the segregation of Alaska Natives in public areas and institutions, and also staged boycotts. Alberta Schenck (Inupiaq) staged a well-publicized protest against segregation in a movie theater in 1944. With the help of Elizabeth Peratrovich (Tlingit), the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 was passed, ending segregation in Alaska. In 1942, during World War II, the United States forced evacuation of around nine hundred Aleuts from the Aleutian Islands. The idea was to remove the Aleuts from a potential combat zone during World War II for their own protection, but European Americans living in the same area were not forced to leave. The removal was handled so poorly that many Aleuts died after they were evacuated; the elderly and children had the highest mortality rates. Survivors returned to the islands to find their homes and possessions destroyed or looted. Alaska became part of the United States in 1959 upon President Dwight D. Eisenhower recognizing Alaska as the 49th state. ANCSA and since (1971 to present) In 1971, with the support of Alaska Native leaders such as Emil Notti, Willie Hensley, and Byron Mallot, the U.S. Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which settled land and financial claims for lands and resources which the Alaska Natives had lost to European-Americans. It provided for the establishment of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations to administer those claims. Similar to the separately defined status of the Canadian Inuit and First Nations in Canada, which are recognized as distinct peoples, in the United States, Alaska Natives are in some respects treated separately by the government from other Native Americans in the United States. This is in part related to their interactions with the U.S. government which occurred in a different historic period than its interactions during the period of westward expansion during the 19th-century. Europeans and Americans did not have sustained encounters with the Alaska Natives until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when many were attracted to the region in gold rushes. The Alaska Natives were not allotted individual title in severalty to land under the Dawes Act of 1887 but were instead treated under the Alaska Native Allotment Act of 1906. It was repealed in 1971, following ANSCA, at which time reservations were ended. Another characteristic difference is that Alaska Native tribal governments do not have the power to collect taxes for business transacted on tribal land, per the United States Supreme Court decision in Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government (1998). Except for the Tsimshian, Alaska Natives no longer hold reservations but do control some lands. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, Alaska Natives are reserved the right to harvest whales and other marine mammals. Climate Change Four indigenous tribes in Alaska, the Shishmaref, Kivalina, Shaktoolik and Newtok tribes, are being considered the first climate refugees for America, due to sea ice melting and increased wildfires in the regions (Bronen and Brubaker). The effects of climate change on the people of Alaska are extensive and include issues such as increased vulnerability to disease, mental health issues, injury, food insecurity, and water insecurity (Brubaker). According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the loss of sea ice will increase erosion area and further displace more native communities. The melting sea ice will also affect the migration of some animals that the tribes rely on and with the ice melting there will be no place to store the food that they do obtain (EPA). Due to the permafrost melting, the infrastructure that has been around in the past will become unstable and native villages will collapse (EPA). The Shishmaref, Kivalina, Shaktoolik and Newtok tribes are located on the west coast of Alaska and due to sea-level rise the villages are experiencing more severe storm surges that are eroding their coastlines (Bronen). There is no land for these tribes to move to that are already in the area they live in which forces these communities to migrate and change their whole way of living (Bronen). Governments are lacking in response to climate refugees, there are no policies in place to determine where these refugees should go or if they get aid to pay for the cost of traveling (Bronen). It is predicted that a climate event will submerge the tribes completely in less than fifteen years (Bronen). Extreme weather conditions has increased the risk of injury, usually there are thick layers of ice all year long but due to increasing temperatures in the atmosphere and the sea the ice in becoming thinner and is increasing the number of people who fall through the ice, if a person survives falling through the ice they are faced with other health concerns (Brubaker). Increased water insecurity and failing infrastructure caused by climate change has created sanitation issues which has increased the amount of respiratory illnesses in many regions in Alaska, in 2005 pneumonia was the leading cause of hospitalizations (Brubaker). Many of the affected tribes are experiencing increased mental stress due to climate change and the problem of relocating but no policy or way to relocate (Brubaker). Stress has also increased on villages who face infrastructure damage due to melting permafrost, there are almost no regulations other than the Alaskan government recommended not building on permafrost or using extra layers of insulation that is used on foundation walls (EPA). Food insecurity has also created stress and health issues, families can not get enough food due to animals also relocating to get to a climate that is more suitable to them (Brubaker). Families also do not have a secure food system because their ways of storing food, underground ice cellar, are no longer frozen year long due to climate change, their cellars thaw in the summers leaving their food supply inedible (Brubaker). Subsistence Gathering of subsistence food continues to be an important economic and cultural activity for many Alaska Natives. In Utqiaġvik, Alaska in 2005, more than 91 percent of the Iñupiat households which were interviewed still participated in the local subsistence economy, compared with the approximately 33 percent of non-Iñupiat households who used wild resources obtained from hunting, fishing, or gathering. But, unlike many tribes in the contiguous United States, Alaska Natives do not have treaties with the United States that protect their subsistence rights, except for the right to harvest whales and other marine mammals. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act explicitly extinguished aboriginal hunting and fishing rights in the state of Alaska. See also Ancient Beringian List of Alaska Native Tribal Entities, the list of Native Villages and other "tribal entities" recognized by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. Prehistory of Alaska First Alaskans Institute Indigenous Amerindian genetics Circumpolar peoples Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic Indigenous peoples of Siberia Alaska Native Storytelling Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 Shamanism among Alaska Natives Women's suffrage in Alaska References Sources Further reading Chythlook-Sifsof, Callan J. "Native Alaska, Under Threat." (Op-Ed) The New York Times. June 27, 2013. External links Alaska Federation of Natives Alaska Native Health Board Alaska Native Heritage Center Alaska Native Language Center First Alaskans Institute Tlingit National Anthem, Alaska Natives Online Arctic Studies Center American culture	false	[ "The Chicxulub crater () is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is offshore near the communities of Chicxulub Puerto and Chicxulub Pueblo, after which the crater is named. It was formed when a large asteroid, about in diameter, struck the Earth. The crater is estimated to be in diameter and in depth. It is one of the largest confirmed impact structures on Earth, and the only one whose peak ring is intact and directly accessible for scientific research.\n\nThe crater was discovered by Antonio Camargo and Glen Penfield, geophysicists who had been looking for petroleum in the Yucatán Peninsula during the late 1970s. Penfield was initially unable to obtain evidence that the geological feature was a crater and gave up his search. Later, through contact with Alan R. Hildebrand in 1990, Penfield obtained samples that suggested it was an impact feature. Evidence for the impact origin of the crater includes shocked quartz, a gravity anomaly, and tektites in surrounding areas.\n\nThe date of the impact coincides with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (commonly known as the K–Pg or K-T boundary), roughly 66 million years ago, and it is now widely accepted that the devastation and climate disruption from the impact was the cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, a mass extinction in which 75% of plant and animal species on Earth became extinct, including all non-avian dinosaurs.\n\nDiscovery\n\nIn the late 1970s, geologist Walter Alvarez and his father, Nobel Prize–winning scientist Luis Walter Alvarez, put forth their theory that the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction was caused by an impact event. The main evidence of such an impact was contained in a thin layer of clay present in the K–Pg boundary in Gubbio, Italy. The Alvarezes and colleagues reported that it contained an abnormally high concentration of iridium, a chemical element rare on earth but common in asteroids. Iridium levels in this layer were as much as 160 times above the background level. It was hypothesized that the iridium was spread into the atmosphere when the impactor was vaporized and settled across the Earth's surface among other material thrown up by the impact, producing the layer of iridium-enriched clay. At the time, consensus was not settled on what caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction and the boundary layer, with theories including a nearby supernova, climate change, or a geomagnetic reversal. The Alvarezes' impact hypothesis was rejected by many paleontologists, who believed that the lack of fossils found close to the K-Pg boundary—the \"three-meter problem\"—suggested a more gradual die-off of fossil species.\n\nThe Alvarezes, joined by nuclear chemist Frank Asaro and Berkeley paleontologist Helen Michel, published their paper on the iridium anomaly in Science in June 1980. Their paper was followed by other reports of similar iridium spikes at the K-Pg boundary across the globe, and sparked wide interest in the cause of the K-Pg extinction; over 2,000 papers were published in the 1980s on the topic. There were no known impact craters that were the right age and size, spurring a search for a suitable candidate. Recognizing the scope of the work, Lee Hunt and Lee Silver organized a cross-discipline meeting in Snowbird, Utah in 1981. Unbeknownst to those gathered, evidence of just the crater they were looking for was being presented the same week, and would be largely missed by the scientific community.\n\nYears earlier in 1978, geophysicists Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo were working for the Mexican state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) as part of an airborne magnetic survey of the Gulf of Mexico north of the Yucatán Peninsula. Penfield's job was to use geophysical data to scout possible locations for oil drilling. In the offshore magnetic data, Penfield noted anomalies whose depth he estimated and mapped. He then obtained onshore gravity data from the 1940s. When the gravity maps and magnetic anomalies were compared, Penfield described a shallow, -diameter \"bullseye\" appearing on the otherwise non-magnetic and uniform surroundings—clear evidence to him of an impact feature. A decade earlier, the same map had suggested a crater to contractor Robert Baltosser, but he was forbidden to publicize his conclusion by Pemex corporate policy.\n\nPenfield presented his findings to Pemex, who rejected the crater theory, instead deferring to findings that ascribed the feature to volcanic activity. Pemex disallowed release of specific data, but let Penfield and Camargo present the results at the 1981 Society of Exploration Geophysicists conference. That year's conference was under-attended and their report attracted scant attention, with many experts on impact craters and the K-Pg boundary attending the Snowbird conference instead. Carlos Byars, a Houston Chronicle journalist who was familiar with Penfield and had seen the gravitational and magnetic data himself, wrote a story on Penfield and Camargo's claim, but the news did not disseminate widely.\n\nAlthough Penfield had plenty of geophysical data sets, he had no rock cores or other physical evidence of an impact. He knew Pemex had drilled exploratory wells in the region. In 1951, one bored into what was described as a thick layer of andesite about down. This layer could have resulted from the intense heat and pressure of an Earth impact, but at the time of the borings it was dismissed as a lava dome—a feature uncharacteristic of the region's geology. Penfield was encouraged by William C. Phinney, curator of the lunar rocks at the Johnson Space Center, to find these samples to prove his theory. Penfield tried to secure site samples, but was told they had been lost or destroyed. When attempts at returning to the drill sites and looking for corroborating rocks proved fruitless, Penfield abandoned his search, published his findings and returned to his Pemex work. Seeing the 1980 Science paper, Penfield wrote to Walter Alvarez about the Yucatán structure, but received no response.\n\nAlvarez and other scientists continued their search for the crater, although they were searching in oceans based on incorrect analysis of glassy spherules from the K-Pg boundary that suggested the impactor had landed in open water. Unaware of Penfield's discovery, University of Arizona graduate student Alan R. Hildebrand and faculty adviser William V. Boynton looked for a crater near the Brazos River in Texas. Their evidence included greenish-brown clay with surplus iridium, containing shocked quartz grains and small weathered glass beads that looked to be tektites. Thick, jumbled deposits of coarse rock fragments were also present, thought to have been scoured from one place and deposited elsewhere by an impact event. Such deposits occur in many locations but seemed concentrated in the Caribbean basin at the K–Pg boundary. When Haitian professor Florentine Morás discovered what he thought to be evidence of an ancient volcano on Haiti, Hildebrand suggested it could be a telltale feature of a nearby impact. Tests on samples retrieved from the K–Pg boundary revealed more tektite glass, formed only in the heat of asteroid impacts and high-yield nuclear detonations.\n\nIn 1990, Carlos Byars told Hildebrand of Penfield's earlier discovery of a possible impact crater. Hildebrand contacted Penfield and the pair soon secured two drill samples from the Pemex wells, which had sat stored in New Orleans for decades. Hildebrand's team tested the samples, which clearly showed shock-metamorphic materials. A team of California researchers surveying satellite images found a cenote (sinkhole) ring centered on the town of Chicxulub Puerto that matched the one Penfield saw earlier; the cenotes were thought to be caused by subsidence of bolide-weakened lithostratigraphy around the impact crater wall. More recent evidence suggests the crater is wide, and the ring is an inner wall of it. Hildebrand, Penfield, Boynton, Camargo, and others published their paper identifying the crater in 1991. The crater was named for the nearby town of Chicxulub. Penfield also recalled that part of the motivation for the name was \"to give the academics and NASA naysayers a challenging time pronouncing it\" after years of dismissing its existence.\n\nIn March 2010, forty-one experts from many countries reviewed the available evidence: 20 years' worth of data spanning a variety of fields. They concluded that the impact at Chicxulub triggered the mass extinctions at the K–Pg boundary. Dissenters, notably Gerta Keller of Princeton University, have proposed an alternate culprit: the eruption of the Deccan Traps in what is now the Indian subcontinent. This period of intense volcanism occurred before and after the Chicxulub impact; dissenting studies argue that the worst of the volcanic activity occurred before the impact, and the role of the Deccan Traps was instead shaping the evolution of surviving species post-impact. A 2013 study compared isotopes in impact glass from the Chicxulub impact with isotopes in ash from the K-Pg boundary, concluding that the they were dated almost exactly the same within experimental error.\n\nImpact specifics\nA 2013 study in Science obtained a mean estimate for the age of the impact as 66,043,000 ± 11,000 years ago (± 43,000 years ago considering systematic error), based on multiple lines of evidence, including argon–argon dating of tektites from Haiti and bentonite horizons overlying the impact horizon in northeastern Montana, United States. This date was supported by a 2015 study based on argon–argon dating of tephra found in lignite beds in the Hell Creek and overlying Fort Union formations in northeastern Montana. A 2018 study based on argon–argon dating of spherules from Gorgonilla Island, Colombia obtained a slightly different result of 66,051,000 ± 31,000 years ago. The impact has been interpreted to have occurred in Northern Hemisphere Spring or late Northern Hemisphere Spring or Summer based on annual isotope curves in sturgeon and paddlefish bones found at the Tanis site in southwestern North Dakota, which is thought to have formed within hours of impact. A 2020 study concluded that the Chicxulub crater was formed by an inclined (45–60° to horizontal) impact from the northeast. The site of the crater at the time of impact was a marine carbonate platform. The water depth at the impact site varied from on the western edge of the crater to over on the northeastern edge. The seafloor rocks consisted of a thick sequence of Jurassic-Cretaceous aged marine sediments, predominantly carbonate rock including dolomite (35-40% of total sequence) and limestone (25-30%) along with evaporites (anhydrite 25-30%), and minor amounts of shale and sandstone (3-4%) underlain by ~ of continental crust, composed of igneous crystalline basement including granite.\n\nThere is broad consensus that the Chicxulub impactor was an asteroid with a carbonaceous chondrite composition, rather than a comet. The impactor was around in diameter—large enough that, if set at sea level, it would have reached taller than Mount Everest.\n\nEffects\n\nHitting the earth at a speed of perhaps a second, the kinetic energy of the impact was estimated in 1996 to be roughly 3×1023 joules, more than a billion times more energy than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The impact created winds in excess of near the blast's center, and created a transient cavity wide and deep that later collapsed. This formed a crater mainly under the sea and covered by of sediment by the 21st century. The impact, expansion of water after filling the crater, and related seismic activity spawned megatsunamis over tall, with one simulation suggesting the immediate waves from the impact may have reached up to 1.5 kilometers (~1 mi) high. The waves scoured the sea floor, leaving ripples underneath what is now Louisiana with average wavelengths of 600 meters and average wave heights of 16 meters, the largest ripples documented. Material shifted by subsequent earthquakes and the waves reached all the way to what are now Texas and Florida, and may have disturbed sediments as far as 6000 kilometers from the impact site. The impact triggered a seismic event with an estimated magnitude 9–11 at the impact site.\n\nA cloud of hot dust, ash and steam would have spread from the crater, with as much as 25 trillion metric tons of excavated material being ejected into the atmosphere by the blast. Some of this material escaped orbit, dispersing through the solar system, while some of it fell back to earth, heated to incandescence upon re-entry. The rock broiled the Earth's surface and ignited wildfires, estimated to have enveloped nearly 70% of the planet's forests. The devastation to living creatures even hundreds of kilometers away was immense, and much of present-day Mexico and the United States would have been desolated. Fossil evidence for an instantaneous die-off of diverse animals was found in a soil layer only thick in New Jersey, away from the impact site, indicating that death and burial under debris occurred suddenly and quickly over wide distances on land. Field research from the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota published in 2019 shows the simultaneous mass extinction of myriad species combined with geological and atmospheric features consistent with the impact event.\n\nVaporized rock, including sulphur-rich gypsum from the shallow coastal waters, was injected into the atmosphere. This global dispersal of dust and sulfates would have led to a sudden and catastrophic effect on the climate worldwide, large temperature drops, and devastated the food chain. The researchers stated that the impact generated an environmental calamity that extinguished life, but it also induced a vast subsurface hydrothermal system that became an oasis for the recovery of life. Researchers using seismic images of the crater in 2008 determined that the impactor landed in deeper water than previously assumed, which may have resulted in increased sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere. This could have made the impact even deadlier by cooling the climate and generating acid rain.\n\nThe emission of dust and particles could have covered the entire surface of the Earth for several years, possibly a decade, creating a harsh environment for living things. Production of carbon dioxide caused by the destruction of carbonate rocks would have led to a sudden greenhouse effect. Over a decade or longer, sunlight would have been blocked from reaching the surface of the Earth by the dust particles in the atmosphere, cooling the surface dramatically. Photosynthesis by plants would also have been interrupted, affecting the entire food chain. A model of the event developed by Lomax et al. (2001) suggests that net primary productivity (NPP) rates may have increased to higher than pre-impact levels over the long term because of the high carbon dioxide concentrations.\n\nA long-term local effect of the impact was the creation of the Yucatán sedimentary basin which \"ultimately produced favorable conditions for human settlement in a region where surface water is scarce.\"\n\nGeology and morphology\n\nThe rocks above the impact feature are layers of marl and limestone reaching to a depth of almost , dating back as far as the Paleocene (56 to 66 million years ago) and therefore after the impact. Below these layers lie more than of andesitic glass and breccia. These andesitic igneous rocks are only found within the impact feature, as is shocked quartz. The K–Pg boundary inside the feature is depressed to compared with the normal depth of about measured away from the impact feature.\n\nAlong the edge of the crater are clusters of cenotes, which suggest that there was a water basin inside the feature during the Neogene period, after the impact. The groundwater of such a basin would have dissolved the limestone and created the caves and cenotes beneath the surface.\n\nChicxulub is the only known Earth crater with a remaining impact peak ring, but it is under of sediment. Analyses indicate that the impactor was large enough to create a peak ring. A joint United Kingdom-United States team obtained the first offshore core samples from the peak ring in 2016, surrounding the central zone of the crater. Drilling reached below the ocean. Sample preparation and analysis were performed in Bremen, Germany.\n\nPink granite, usually found deep in the Earth's crust, was found in drilling samples. It suggests the impact was so great it shocked and melted rocks found deep in the crust, causing them to shoot up before falling back down to produce the peak rings. The granite samples were also found to be lighter and weaker than normal granite, a result of the shock and extreme conditions of the impact. The post-impact tsunamis were sufficient to lay down the largest-known layered bed of sand, around deep and separated by grain size, directly above the peak ring.\n\nThe peak ring drilling below the sea floor also discovered a massive hydrothermal system, which modified ~1.4 × 105 km3 of Earth's crust and lasted for hundreds of thousands of years; in addition, those hydrothermal systems might support the impact origin of life hypothesis for the Hadean, when the entire surface of Earth was affected by impactors much larger than the Chicxulub impactor.\n\nAstronomical origin of impactor\nIn 1998 a 2.5 mm sized meteorite was described from the North Pacific from sediments spanning the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, that was suggested to represent a fragment of the Chicxulub impactor. Analysis suggested that it best fit the criteria of CV, CO and CR carbonaceous chondrites.\n\nIn September 2007, a report published in Nature proposed an origin for the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater. The authors, William F. Bottke, David Vokrouhlický, and David Nesvorný, argued that a collision in the asteroid belt 160 million years ago resulted in the Baptistina family of asteroids, the largest surviving member of which is 298 Baptistina. They proposed that the \"Chicxulub asteroid\" was also a member of this group. The connection between Chicxulub and Baptistina is supported by the large amount of carbonaceous material present in microscopic fragments of the impactor, suggesting the impactor was a member of an uncommon class of asteroids called carbonaceous chondrites, like Baptistina. According to Bottke, the Chicxulub impactor was a fragment of a much larger parent body about across, with the other impacting body being around in diameter.\n\nIn 2011, data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer revised the date of the collision which created the Baptistina family to about 80 million years ago. This makes an asteroid from this family highly improbable to be the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater, as typically the process of resonance and collision of an asteroid takes many tens of millions of years. In 2010, another hypothesis was offered which implicated the newly discovered asteroid 354P/LINEAR, a member of the Flora family of asteroids, as a possible remnant cohort of the K/Pg impactor.\n\nFour independent laboratories showed elevated concentrations of iridium in the crater's peak ring, further corroborating the asteroid impact hypothesis. In the same month Avi Loeb and a colleague published a study in Scientific Reports suggesting the impactor was a fragment from a disrupted comet, rather than an asteroid which has long been the leading candidate among scientists. This was followed by a rebuttal published in Astronomy & Geophysics in June of the same year, which charged that the paper ignored the fact that the mass of iridium deposited across the globe by the impact (estimated to be approximately 2.0 - 2.8 × 1011 grams), was too large to be created by a comet impactor, and suggested based on geochemical evidence, including the excess of chromium isotope 54Cr and the ratios of platinum group metals found in marine impact layers, that the impactor was either a CM or CR carbonaceous chondrite C-type asteroid. In July 2021, a study reported that the impactor likely originated in the outer main part of the asteroid belt, based on numerical simulations.\n\nSee also \n Barberton Greenstone Belt\n List of impact craters on Earth\n List of possible impact structures on Earth \n Permian–Triassic extinction event\n Timeline of Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event research\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Chicxulub Crater\n Chicxulub: Variations in the magnitude of the gravity field at sea level image (Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA)\n \"Doubts On Dinosaurs\" – Scientific American\n Papers and presentations resulting from the 2016 Chicxulub drilling project\n\nImpact craters of Mexico\nCretaceous impact craters\nOceans\n \nPrehistoric dinosaurs\nExtinction events\nMérida, Yucatán\nNatural history of the Caribbean\nNatural history of the Yucatán Peninsula", "Doug Oldham (November 30, 1930 – July 21, 2010) was an American Southern Gospel singer and a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.\n\nEarly years\nOldham was the son of Dr. Dale Oldham, a minister in the Church of God. His grandfather was also a clergyman. He nearly died from pneumonia as a child.\n\nMusical career\nOldham was a musical performer for more than 60 years, with 64 albums to his credit, often traveling and performing with his wife Laura Lee. The couple produced a CD and wrote three books together.\n\nEarly years\nOldham traveled with Fred Waring and Waring's Pennsylvanians in 1951 and sang as a member of that group's Glory Voices Quartet.\n\nRadio\nBeginning in 1950, Oldham was a soloist on the Christian Brotherhood Hour, after having served as soloist for several years on the broadcast of Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis, Indiana.\n\nTelevision\nOldham was a regular performer on The Old Time Gospel Hour with Jerry Falwell, The PTL Club with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker during the 1970s and 80s, and traveled with the Bill Gaither Trio and the Slaughters during the 1960s. In 1975, he sang with the Speer Family for Christian concerts. He was also a performer on several of Bill Gaither's Gaither Homecoming videos.\n\nInfluence\nThe trials that Oldham faced in his life were the basis for \"a number of songs ... including Something Worth Living For and Thanks to Calvary (We Don't Live Here Anymore).\n\nMinistry\nOldham was a minister of music, having been ordained in 1955. He served in that position in churches in High Point, North Carolina, Royal Oak, Michigan, Middletown, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana.\n\nIn 1963, Oldham began ministering in evangelism through music. A newspaper article noted that he \"served as song director and soloist for citywide preaching missions, camp meetings, youth conventions and concerts\" across the United States and in other countries.\n\nAwards and honors\nOldham's album, Something Worth Living For, was named the best gospel album of 1968 by the National Evangelical Film Foundation.\n\nIn the mid-1970s, Oldham was granted an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the California Graduate School of Theology. In 2006, he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.\n\nHe was the recipient of two GMA Dove Awards and an Angel Award.\n\nIn 2007, Liberty University named a campus recital hall at the Fine Arts Building, the \"Oldham Recital Hall, in his honor and established the Liberty University Oldham Concert Hall Scholarship Fund at the Center for Worship.\n\nPersonal life\nOldham and his wife Laura Lee had three daughters, Paula, Karen, and DeeDee. He was the recipient of an honorary doctorate degree and was named an Honorary Colonel of Alabama.\n\nDiscography\nI've A Song (TDE)\nSongs that Lift the Heart (TDE)\nDoug and Dr. Dale Oldham - Duets and Devotions (TDE 506)\nSongs that Touch the Heart (TDE 507)\nRequests and Favorites (TDE 509)\nThe Lord is My Song - with the Leppien Sisters (Universal 3661)\nDoug Oldham Sings from the Hymnal (Universal 3667)\nSings Songs of Joy, Real Joy - with the Leppien Sisters (Universal 66621)\nDoug Oldham with Jake Hess and the Imperials (Heartwarming 1930)\nSomething Worth Living For (Heartwarming 1959)\nFor Such a Time as This (Heartwarming 1977)\nA Rich Man Am I (Heartwarming-Impact 1997)\nI've Got To Go On (Heartwarming-Impact 3039)\nSings Jerry Falwell's Television Favorites (Impact 3062)\nHave You Heard... God Loves You! (Impact 3064)\nThe King is Coming! (Impact 3087)\nBathing in the Sunlight of God's Love - renamed The Family of God (Impact 3099)\nSings the Best of Bill Gaither (Impact 3143)\nThrough It All (Impact 3156)\nGet All Excited... Go Tell Everybody! (Impact 3183)\nChristmas with Doug Oldham (Impact 3193)\nInspiration (Vista 1235)\nLive (Impact 3211)\nTo God Be the Glory (Impact 3240)\nSings More Songs of Bill Gaither (Impact 3272)\nThe Church Triumphant ... Alive and Well! (Impact 3324)\nDoug/Warm (Impact 3345)\nLive... with the Speers (Impact 3353)\nDoug Oldham & Friends (Impact 3393)\nI Am... Because (Impact 3430)\nGolden Treasury of Hymns for the Family of God (Impact 3496)\nSings the Old and New of Bill and Gloria Gaither (Impact 3529)\nSpecial Delivery (Impact 3546)\nHoliday Song (Impact 3562)\nWhat's It Gonna Take (Impact 3707)\nGolden Treasury of Hymns Volume 2 (Impact 3755)\nCount Me In (Impact 3781)\nHymns of the Faith (PTL 1857)\nAll Rise (PTL 1996)\nPoet of Praise (Lovesong)\nHe Saw Me (Brentwood)\nThe Storyteller (Song Garden)\nUnmistakably Doug\nMy God Is Good\n\nBook\nI Don't Live There Anymore by Doug Oldham (Impact Books 1973 )\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nwww.dougoldham.com—Official website\n\n1930 births\n2010 deaths\nAmerican gospel singers\nSouthern gospel performers\nAnderson University (Indiana) alumni\nSingers from Indiana" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting" ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	Who was apart of the casting for the movie?	1	Who was a part of the casting for the movie Chapter 27?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	true	[ "Randy Stone (August 26, 1958 – February 12, 2007) was an American actor, producer, casting director, Emmy and Academy Award winner. He was a co-founder of The Trevor Project.\n\nCareer\nStone began his acting career in 1976 as a child actor on Charlie's Angels. However, most of his acting roles were as an adult. He appeared in two episodes of Space: Above and Beyond, and did two film roles. His most notable performance was as the hapless gay Los Angeles millionaire Michael Beebe in the second-season episode Beware of the Dog on the television series Millennium.\n\nStone's primary career was as a casting director. He began working with The Landsberg Company in 1981. His first job was casting the NBC series Gimme A Break!. He was head of casting at 20th Century Fox Television, and was responsible for casting David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson on The X-Files and Lance Henriksen on Millennium. In 1998, Stone, who was gay, was terminated at Fox and filed a complaint with the California State Labor Commission that he had been illegally discriminated against on the basis of his sexual orientation. The company refused to comply with the Commission's decision.\n\nAmong his more notable film and television casting jobs were the film Jaws 3-D (1983), the made-for-TV movie The Ryan White Story (1989), Cameron Crowe's directorial film debut Say Anything... (1989), the made-for-TV movie The Incident (1990) and the television series Space: Above and Beyond.\n\nIn later years, he also produced several films. He was executive producer for the film Little Man Tate, Jodie Foster's directorial debut motion picture. He and co-producer/director Peggy Rajski won an Oscar for the 1994 short film Trevor, a comedy-drama about a gay teenage boy's attempted suicide. Ellen DeGeneres hosted a special airing of the film on HBO in 1998. In 2006, Stone wrote and executive produced the television film A Little Thing Called Murder, starring Judy Davis, based on the story of murderer Sante Kimes. It won him the International Press Academy's Satellite Award for Motion Picture Made for Television.\n\nThe 2008 motion picture, The X-Files: I Want To Believe was dedicated in his memory in the closing credits.\n\nPersonal life \nIn 1983, Stone married Roslyn Kind, half-sister of Barbra Streisand. After their 1988 divorce, he came out as gay. He was close friends with Jodie Foster.\n\nOn February 12, 2007, Stone died of heart disease at his home in Beverly Hills, California.\n\nAwards\n\nIn addition to his Oscar, he and fellow casting director Holly Powell won an Emmy Award in 1990 for Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries or Special for The Incident. Stone and Powell were only the second recipients of this award, which had been established in 1989.\n\nHe was nominated three times for an Artios Award by the Casting Society of America. In 1982, he was nominated for Best Casting for Comedy Episodic TV for his work on Cheers. In 1986, he and co-casting director Lori Openden were nominated in the same category for casting the pilot episode of All Is Forgiven. And in 1991 he was nominated for Best Casting for a TV Miniseries for Switched at Birth.\n\nTrevor Project\n\nIn 1998, Stone co-founded a nonprofit organization inspired by the film Trevor, called The Trevor Project. The organization runs a 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention hotline aimed at gay and questioning youth in the United States. The organization produced teaching guides and support materials for distribution to teens in schools.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\"Casting Director, Producer Stone Dies.\" Variety. February 15, 2007.\n\"Emmy Casting Winners - A Timeline.\" Casting Society of America, 2003. Accessed February 18, 2007.\n\"Obituaries: Stone, Randy.\" Los Angeles Times. February 15, 2007.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Trevor Project web site\n\n1958 births\n2007 deaths\nAmerican film producers\nAmerican male television actors\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican casting directors\nLGBT actors from the United States\nLGBT people from California\n20th-century American male actors\nEmmy Award winners\n20th-century LGBT people", "2020 Casting (now Mad Dog 2020 Casting) is a casting agency based in London, England which supplies extras for film shoots. Previously, it was located in Hopgood St, Shepherd's Bush, in West London. 2020 casting merged with Mad Dog Casting in 2017 to form Mad Dog 2020 Casting and is now based in Ealing Studios.\n\nThe agency was founded by actor Christopher Villiers and personal trainer Richard Smedley who met on the set of the film First Knight in around 1995. 2020 was \"the first agency to take digital photographs of its artistes\", and \"the first to use text messaging systems to contact our artistes\".\n\nVilliers is known for his part in the top rated ITV soap opera, Emmerdale in which he played the role of the solicitor Grayson Sinclair.\n\n2020 Casting has a sister agency, SA19 that is a leading supplier of uniformed supporting artistes to the UK film and television industry.\n\n2020 claims to have 2,600 artistes registered on their books, with a backup database of well over 30,000. They have supplied extras for more than 200 films, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Shaun of the Dead and Bridget Jones's Diary.\n\nReferences\nJones, Chris Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint Continuum International Publishing Group (2003) Retrieved December 2012\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n2020 Official website Retrieved December 2012\n2020 at www.theactingwebsite.com Retrieved December 2012\n\nTalent and literary agencies" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting", "Who was apart of the casting for the movie?", "With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman." ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	During filming what was some obstacles if any?	2	During filming of Chapter 27 what were some obstacles if any?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	true	[ "Fully Flared is a street skateboarding video by the Lakai footwear company, featuring video parts from its team riders. The film is directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze, and Cory Weincheque. In 2007, it won \"Best Video of the Year\" at the Transworld Skateboarding Awards, while Guy Mariano won both the \"Best Street\" and \"Best Video Part\" awards at the same event. It was one of the first skateboarding videos to use high-definition cameras. The film has become a skateboarding culture icon as the apex of professional skateboarding.\n\nIntroduction feature\nThe introduction features the skateboarders performing tricks in a vacant urban space, consisting of obstacles, blocks, and stair sets, while explosions occur. Presented in slow motion, the introduction feature is accompanied by a soundtrack from electronic music group, M83.\n\nOriginally, Evans, Jonze, and Howard played with different ideas that were significantly more dangerous than what was eventually featured. The introduction was eventually filmed three weeks prior to the premiere.\n\nProduction\nOverall the film took about four years to make.\n\nSome team members have a considerable amount of leftover footage, and plan to use it for other videos. Most of the video was filmed with Sony DCR-VX1000 cameras. The Panasonic HVX200 (to which Ty Evans gained access, towards the end of filming) high-definition camera was used for second angles.\n\nFilming\nThe main group filming was Aaron Meza and Chris Ray. In Europe, an Italian filmer named Federico Vitetta - who had been living with Oliver Barton in Spain for a year - took on the role. Then was conceptual help from Rick Howard and Spike Jonze. Finally, Johannes Gamble helped with all the effects work.\n\nRelease\nThe video's release was postponed for about two years, mainly due to important team additions.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLakai.com - Lakai's official website\nSkatevideosite.com - Fully Flared soundtrack list\n\nSkateboarding videos\n2007 films", "3 Supermen a Tokyo is a 1968 film directed by Bitto Albertini.\n\nSynopsis \nTwo ruthless thieves known as \"the supermen\" are captured by the government, and in exchange for commuting their sentence they are forced to accompany the agent Martin, who has a mission to find a recording which, if brought to light, would cause a political scandal. But the road is not easy, and they encounter all kinds of obstacles.\n\nProduction\n3 Supermen a Tokio did not have any of the original cast outside Gloria Paul of the original film The Three Fantastic Supermen.\n\n3 Supermen a Tokio was shot in Tokyo. When shooting there, director Bitto Albertini stated that filming was shot with indifference from the Japanese paseers-by when shooting a car chase with the scene being shot with hidden cameras in hopes to capture the shocked reactions from the crowd.\n\nRelease\n3 Superman a Tokyo was released in Italy in 1968. It was released in Germany as Drei tolle Kerle on 17 July 1968.\n\nSee also \nSupermen Against the Orient\nList of Italian films of 1968\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nFootnotes\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1968 films\n1960s comedy films\n1960s superhero films\nItalian superhero films\nItalian films\nItalian comedy films\nWest German films\nGerman comedy films\nFilms shot in Tokyo\nSuperhero comedy films\n1968 comedy films" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting", "Who was apart of the casting for the movie?", "With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "During filming what was some obstacles if any?", "Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict" ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	Who had to gain weight?	3	Who had to gain weight for Chapter 27?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	true	[ "Gestational weight gain is defined as the amount of weight gain a woman experiences between conception and birth of an infant.\n\nRecommendations \nThe Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations for gestational weight gain are based on body mass index (BMI) of women prior to pregnancy. However, early first trimester BMI appears to be a valid proxy for pre-conception BMI. BMI is split up into four categories: underweight (<18.5 kg/m^2), normal weight (18.5-24.9 kg/m^2), overweight (25-29.9 kg/m^2), and obese (≥30.0 kg/m^2). The IOM has recommended the ranges of weight gain to be 12.5–18 kg, 11.5–16 kg, 7-11.5 kg, and 5–9 kg respectively. That is, the smaller the BMI pre pregnancy, the more weight a woman is expected to gain during her pregnancy.\n\nContributing factors \nExcessive GWG has been shown to adversely affect maternal and baby health postpartum. Only a little over a quarter of women have adequate GWG, meaning that their weight gain during pregnancy falls within the IOM recommended range. A little less than a quarter of women have inadequate GWG. However, excessive GWG is the most prevalent occurring in around half of pregnant women.\n\nPre-pregnancy BMI \nHaving a higher BMI pre-pregnancy may leave you at a greater risk for excessive gestational weight gain and ultimately for cardio-metabolic diseases prenatally and postpartum.\n\nFood access \nFood security is defined as consistent access, geographically or financially, to sufficient, nutritious, and affordable food and has been theorized to be a cause of excess gestational weight gain. Women that only have access to fast food, for example, would be considered to be \"lower food security\", and these women might be more likely to suffer from excess gestational weight gain because the food available is cheap, but high in calories. Having access to affordable and nutritious food has been linked to a lesser risk of impaired glucose tolerance. which is related to excess gestational weight gain.\n\nIt is not uncommon for there to be a correlation between socioeconomic status and food security; that is, women of low socioeconomic status have been reported to have low food security, particularly in terms of the affordability of nutritious food. Some women of low socioeconomic status claim that they feel pressure to eat more during pregnancy out of the fear that they are not providing their babies with enough food. With low food security, these women would consume high calorie food in significant quantities, potentially leading to excess gestational weight gain. There seems to be a negative correlation between food security and excess gestational weight gain that is sometimes related to socioeconomic status.\n\nExpectations \nOverweight and obese women are significantly more likely to expect excessive gestational weight gain compared with normal-weight women, and women who report expecting to gain excessively are three times more likely to actually gain excessively than those who expect to gain within the guidelines.\n\nIncome \nRegardless of a relation to food security, having a low income might also predispose women to excess gestational weight gain, yet the reasoning is unclear. One possibility is related to stress. Financial stress has been shown to be positively correlated with levels of CRP postpartum, a stress hormone associated with weight gain most likely because people eat increasingly unhealthy when stressed. Women with a higher monthly budget for food may have a healthier gestational weight gain, while those with less money allocated for food may be more likely to experience excessive gestational weight gain. However, the opposite may also be true: wealthier women may be more likely to suffer from excess gestational weight gain. Women in wealthy communities have been reported to have higher postpartum weight retention than those in more poverty, and since women who have excessive gestational weight gain are more likely to retain weight postpartum women in less poverty might be more likely to have excess gestational weight gain. This suggests that a greater household income does not necessarily provide protection against excess gestational weight gain.\n\nRace/ethnicity \nRace/ethnicity is an important variable to take into account when discussing gestational weight gain because women of racial/ethnic minorities demonstrate disproportionately higher obesity levels than non-Hispanic white women. The IOM guidelines were created from data mostly consisting of white women, and thus may not be an appropriate measure for women of other races/ethnicities.\n\nAfrican American women in general may have higher postpartum cardio-metabolic risk and more excess gestational weight gain than Latina women, who in turn have more than white women. However, this is not always the case. One study reported that although African American women are more likely to be overweight or obese pre-pregnancy, they were less likely to have excessive weight gain than white women in one study.\n\nPoverty \nEven though in many areas in the United States, there has been a decline in inequality on the basis of race/ethnicity, there still exists disproportionate social stratification. Racial/ethnic minorities, such as blacks and Latinos, are more likely to be found in neighborhoods high in poverty. African American women in poverty have been seen to have significantly higher postpartum cardio-metabolic risk than wealthier African American women, which could be partially related to these impoverished women having excess gestational weight gain. White women in poverty, on the other hand, had excess gestational weight gain and higher postpartum cardio-metabolic risk than the white women with higher incomes. This was also true for Latina women in poverty compared to those wealthier. The information regarding how race/ethnicity affects experience of excess gestational weight gain can be related to poverty levels, and the data available is limited and variable.\n\nReferences \n\nHuman pregnancy", "Weight gain is an increase in body weight. This can involve an increase in muscle mass, fat deposits, excess fluids such as water or other factors. Weight gain can be a symptom of a serious medical condition.\n\nDescription \nWeight gain occurs when more energy (as calories from food and beverage consumption) is gained than the energy expended by life activities, including normal physiological processes and physical exercise.\n\nIf enough weight is gained due to increased body fat deposits, one may become overweight or obese, generally defined as having more body fat (adipose tissue) than is considered good for health. The Body Mass Index (BMI) measures body weight in proportion to height, and defines optimal, insufficient, and excessive weight based on the ratio.\n\nHaving excess adipose tissue (fat) is a common condition, especially where food supplies are plentiful and lifestyles are sedentary. Overweight and obesity may increase the risk of several diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers, and may lead to short- and long-term health problems during pregnancy. Rates of obesity worldwide tripled from 1975 to 2016 to involve some 1.8 billion people and 39% of the world adult population.\n\nA commonly asserted \"rule\" (the Wishnofsky Rule, aka Wishnofsky's Rule) for weight gain or loss, is based on the research of Max Wishnofsky (December 17, 1899 - August 2, 1965), a Russian-born physician who had a medical practice in Brooklyn, New York. The Wishnofsky Rule states that one pound of human fat tissue contains about 3,500 kilocalories (often simply called calories in the field of nutrition). Wishnofsky conducted a review of previous observations and experiments on weight loss and weight gain, and stated his conclusions in a paper he published in 1958. Thus, according to the Wishnofsky Rule, eating 500 fewer calories than one needs per day should result in a loss of about a pound per week. Similarly, for every 3500 calories consumed above the amount one needs, a pound will be gained.\n\nWishnofsky noted that previous research suggested that a pound of human adipose tissue is 87% fat, which equals 395 grams of fat. He further assumed that animal fat contains 9.5 calories per gram. Thus one pound of human fat tissue should contain 3750 calories. He then critically analyzed the relevant literature and applied a number of additional assumptions, including that the diet contains sufficient protein and that the person is in glycogen and nitrogen (protein) equilibrium, leading to most weight loss stemming from the catabolism of fat. He concluded that a 3500 calorie excess or deficit for a person meeting his assumptions, would lead to the gain or loss, respectively, of one pound of body weight. He noted that if the assumptions he made are not met, a deficit of 3500 calories would not necessarily equate to a pound of weight loss.\n\nWishnofsky did not take into account numerous aspects of human physiology and biochemistry which were unknown at the time. The claim has achieved the status of a rule of thumb and is repeated in numerous sources, used for diet planning by dietitians and misapplied at the population level as well.\n\nCauses \nIn regard to adipose tissue increases, a person generally gains weight by increasing food consumption, becoming physically inactive, or both. When energy intake exceeds energy expenditure (when the body is in positive energy balance), the body can store the excess energy as fat. However, the physiology of weight gain and loss is complex involving numerous hormones, body systems and environmental factors. Other factors besides energy balance that may contribute to gaining weight include:\n\nSocial factors \nA study, involving more than 12,000 people tracked over 32 years, found that social networks play a surprisingly powerful role in determining an individual's chances of gaining weight, transmitting an increased risk of becoming obese from wives to husbands, from brothers to brothers and from friends to friends.\n\nThe human microbiota facilitates fermentation of indigestible carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids, SCFAs, contributing to weight gain. A change in the proportion of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes may determine host's risk of obesity.\n\nSleep and stress\nLack of sufficient sleep has been suggested as a cause for weight gain or the difficulty in maintaining a healthy weight. Two hormones responsible for regulating hunger and metabolism are leptin, which inhibits appetite and increases energy expenditure, and ghrelin, which increases appetite and reduces energy expenditure. Studies have shown that chronic sleep deprivation is associated with reduced levels of leptin and elevated levels of ghrelin, which together result in increased appetite, especially for high fat and high carbohydrate foods. As a result, sleep deprivation over time may contribute to increased caloric intake and decreased self-control over food cravings, leading to weight gain.\n\nHormone and neurotransmitter imbalances\nWeight gain is a common side-effect of certain psychiatric medications.\n\nPathologies\nPathological causes of weight gain include Cushing's syndrome, hypothyroidism, insulinoma, and craniopharyngioma. Genetic reasons can relate to Prader–Willi syndrome, Bardet–Biedl syndrome, Alström syndrome, Cohen syndrome, and Carpenter syndrome.\n\nEffects \nExcess adipose tissue can lead to medical problems; however, a round or large figure does not necessarily imply a medical problem, and is sometimes not primarily caused by adipose tissue. If too much weight is gained, serious health side-effects may follow. A large number of medical conditions have been associated with obesity. Health consequences are categorised as being the result of either increased fat mass (osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, social stigma) or increased number of fat cells (diabetes, some forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease).\n There are alterations in the body's response to insulin (insulin resistance), a proinflammatory state and an increased tendency to thrombosis (prothrombotic state).\n\nSee also \nHealthy diet\nFad diet\nFat feminism\nFat acceptance movement\nWeight loss\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSymptoms and signs\nHuman body weight\nObesity\nExternal signs of ageing" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting", "Who was apart of the casting for the movie?", "With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "During filming what was some obstacles if any?", "Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict", "Who had to gain weight?", "Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman." ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	Did he feel emotions about having to gain weight?	4	Did Jared Leto feel emotions about having to gain weight for Chapter 27?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	true	[ "Gestational weight gain is defined as the amount of weight gain a woman experiences between conception and birth of an infant.\n\nRecommendations \nThe Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations for gestational weight gain are based on body mass index (BMI) of women prior to pregnancy. However, early first trimester BMI appears to be a valid proxy for pre-conception BMI. BMI is split up into four categories: underweight (<18.5 kg/m^2), normal weight (18.5-24.9 kg/m^2), overweight (25-29.9 kg/m^2), and obese (≥30.0 kg/m^2). The IOM has recommended the ranges of weight gain to be 12.5–18 kg, 11.5–16 kg, 7-11.5 kg, and 5–9 kg respectively. That is, the smaller the BMI pre pregnancy, the more weight a woman is expected to gain during her pregnancy.\n\nContributing factors \nExcessive GWG has been shown to adversely affect maternal and baby health postpartum. Only a little over a quarter of women have adequate GWG, meaning that their weight gain during pregnancy falls within the IOM recommended range. A little less than a quarter of women have inadequate GWG. However, excessive GWG is the most prevalent occurring in around half of pregnant women.\n\nPre-pregnancy BMI \nHaving a higher BMI pre-pregnancy may leave you at a greater risk for excessive gestational weight gain and ultimately for cardio-metabolic diseases prenatally and postpartum.\n\nFood access \nFood security is defined as consistent access, geographically or financially, to sufficient, nutritious, and affordable food and has been theorized to be a cause of excess gestational weight gain. Women that only have access to fast food, for example, would be considered to be \"lower food security\", and these women might be more likely to suffer from excess gestational weight gain because the food available is cheap, but high in calories. Having access to affordable and nutritious food has been linked to a lesser risk of impaired glucose tolerance. which is related to excess gestational weight gain.\n\nIt is not uncommon for there to be a correlation between socioeconomic status and food security; that is, women of low socioeconomic status have been reported to have low food security, particularly in terms of the affordability of nutritious food. Some women of low socioeconomic status claim that they feel pressure to eat more during pregnancy out of the fear that they are not providing their babies with enough food. With low food security, these women would consume high calorie food in significant quantities, potentially leading to excess gestational weight gain. There seems to be a negative correlation between food security and excess gestational weight gain that is sometimes related to socioeconomic status.\n\nExpectations \nOverweight and obese women are significantly more likely to expect excessive gestational weight gain compared with normal-weight women, and women who report expecting to gain excessively are three times more likely to actually gain excessively than those who expect to gain within the guidelines.\n\nIncome \nRegardless of a relation to food security, having a low income might also predispose women to excess gestational weight gain, yet the reasoning is unclear. One possibility is related to stress. Financial stress has been shown to be positively correlated with levels of CRP postpartum, a stress hormone associated with weight gain most likely because people eat increasingly unhealthy when stressed. Women with a higher monthly budget for food may have a healthier gestational weight gain, while those with less money allocated for food may be more likely to experience excessive gestational weight gain. However, the opposite may also be true: wealthier women may be more likely to suffer from excess gestational weight gain. Women in wealthy communities have been reported to have higher postpartum weight retention than those in more poverty, and since women who have excessive gestational weight gain are more likely to retain weight postpartum women in less poverty might be more likely to have excess gestational weight gain. This suggests that a greater household income does not necessarily provide protection against excess gestational weight gain.\n\nRace/ethnicity \nRace/ethnicity is an important variable to take into account when discussing gestational weight gain because women of racial/ethnic minorities demonstrate disproportionately higher obesity levels than non-Hispanic white women. The IOM guidelines were created from data mostly consisting of white women, and thus may not be an appropriate measure for women of other races/ethnicities.\n\nAfrican American women in general may have higher postpartum cardio-metabolic risk and more excess gestational weight gain than Latina women, who in turn have more than white women. However, this is not always the case. One study reported that although African American women are more likely to be overweight or obese pre-pregnancy, they were less likely to have excessive weight gain than white women in one study.\n\nPoverty \nEven though in many areas in the United States, there has been a decline in inequality on the basis of race/ethnicity, there still exists disproportionate social stratification. Racial/ethnic minorities, such as blacks and Latinos, are more likely to be found in neighborhoods high in poverty. African American women in poverty have been seen to have significantly higher postpartum cardio-metabolic risk than wealthier African American women, which could be partially related to these impoverished women having excess gestational weight gain. White women in poverty, on the other hand, had excess gestational weight gain and higher postpartum cardio-metabolic risk than the white women with higher incomes. This was also true for Latina women in poverty compared to those wealthier. The information regarding how race/ethnicity affects experience of excess gestational weight gain can be related to poverty levels, and the data available is limited and variable.\n\nReferences \n\nHuman pregnancy", "Weight gain is an increase in body weight. This can involve an increase in muscle mass, fat deposits, excess fluids such as water or other factors. Weight gain can be a symptom of a serious medical condition.\n\nDescription \nWeight gain occurs when more energy (as calories from food and beverage consumption) is gained than the energy expended by life activities, including normal physiological processes and physical exercise.\n\nIf enough weight is gained due to increased body fat deposits, one may become overweight or obese, generally defined as having more body fat (adipose tissue) than is considered good for health. The Body Mass Index (BMI) measures body weight in proportion to height, and defines optimal, insufficient, and excessive weight based on the ratio.\n\nHaving excess adipose tissue (fat) is a common condition, especially where food supplies are plentiful and lifestyles are sedentary. Overweight and obesity may increase the risk of several diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers, and may lead to short- and long-term health problems during pregnancy. Rates of obesity worldwide tripled from 1975 to 2016 to involve some 1.8 billion people and 39% of the world adult population.\n\nA commonly asserted \"rule\" (the Wishnofsky Rule, aka Wishnofsky's Rule) for weight gain or loss, is based on the research of Max Wishnofsky (December 17, 1899 - August 2, 1965), a Russian-born physician who had a medical practice in Brooklyn, New York. The Wishnofsky Rule states that one pound of human fat tissue contains about 3,500 kilocalories (often simply called calories in the field of nutrition). Wishnofsky conducted a review of previous observations and experiments on weight loss and weight gain, and stated his conclusions in a paper he published in 1958. Thus, according to the Wishnofsky Rule, eating 500 fewer calories than one needs per day should result in a loss of about a pound per week. Similarly, for every 3500 calories consumed above the amount one needs, a pound will be gained.\n\nWishnofsky noted that previous research suggested that a pound of human adipose tissue is 87% fat, which equals 395 grams of fat. He further assumed that animal fat contains 9.5 calories per gram. Thus one pound of human fat tissue should contain 3750 calories. He then critically analyzed the relevant literature and applied a number of additional assumptions, including that the diet contains sufficient protein and that the person is in glycogen and nitrogen (protein) equilibrium, leading to most weight loss stemming from the catabolism of fat. He concluded that a 3500 calorie excess or deficit for a person meeting his assumptions, would lead to the gain or loss, respectively, of one pound of body weight. He noted that if the assumptions he made are not met, a deficit of 3500 calories would not necessarily equate to a pound of weight loss.\n\nWishnofsky did not take into account numerous aspects of human physiology and biochemistry which were unknown at the time. The claim has achieved the status of a rule of thumb and is repeated in numerous sources, used for diet planning by dietitians and misapplied at the population level as well.\n\nCauses \nIn regard to adipose tissue increases, a person generally gains weight by increasing food consumption, becoming physically inactive, or both. When energy intake exceeds energy expenditure (when the body is in positive energy balance), the body can store the excess energy as fat. However, the physiology of weight gain and loss is complex involving numerous hormones, body systems and environmental factors. Other factors besides energy balance that may contribute to gaining weight include:\n\nSocial factors \nA study, involving more than 12,000 people tracked over 32 years, found that social networks play a surprisingly powerful role in determining an individual's chances of gaining weight, transmitting an increased risk of becoming obese from wives to husbands, from brothers to brothers and from friends to friends.\n\nThe human microbiota facilitates fermentation of indigestible carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids, SCFAs, contributing to weight gain. A change in the proportion of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes may determine host's risk of obesity.\n\nSleep and stress\nLack of sufficient sleep has been suggested as a cause for weight gain or the difficulty in maintaining a healthy weight. Two hormones responsible for regulating hunger and metabolism are leptin, which inhibits appetite and increases energy expenditure, and ghrelin, which increases appetite and reduces energy expenditure. Studies have shown that chronic sleep deprivation is associated with reduced levels of leptin and elevated levels of ghrelin, which together result in increased appetite, especially for high fat and high carbohydrate foods. As a result, sleep deprivation over time may contribute to increased caloric intake and decreased self-control over food cravings, leading to weight gain.\n\nHormone and neurotransmitter imbalances\nWeight gain is a common side-effect of certain psychiatric medications.\n\nPathologies\nPathological causes of weight gain include Cushing's syndrome, hypothyroidism, insulinoma, and craniopharyngioma. Genetic reasons can relate to Prader–Willi syndrome, Bardet–Biedl syndrome, Alström syndrome, Cohen syndrome, and Carpenter syndrome.\n\nEffects \nExcess adipose tissue can lead to medical problems; however, a round or large figure does not necessarily imply a medical problem, and is sometimes not primarily caused by adipose tissue. If too much weight is gained, serious health side-effects may follow. A large number of medical conditions have been associated with obesity. Health consequences are categorised as being the result of either increased fat mass (osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, social stigma) or increased number of fat cells (diabetes, some forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease).\n There are alterations in the body's response to insulin (insulin resistance), a proinflammatory state and an increased tendency to thrombosis (prothrombotic state).\n\nSee also \nHealthy diet\nFad diet\nFat feminism\nFat acceptance movement\nWeight loss\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nSymptoms and signs\nHuman body weight\nObesity\nExternal signs of ageing" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting", "Who was apart of the casting for the movie?", "With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "During filming what was some obstacles if any?", "Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict", "Who had to gain weight?", "Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "Did he feel emotions about having to gain weight?", "he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape" ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	Did he loose the weight after the filming was done?	5	Did Jared Leto loose the weight after the filming for Chapter 27 was done?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout.	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	true	[ "Breaking Loose is a 1988 Australian film. It was a sequel to Summer City (1977).\n\nProduction\nAvalon had dropped out of the film industry after an unhappy experience on Little Boy Lost. Having bought a surf shop he continued surfing competitively and continuing his acting career in movies. One day Alan Dickes who had directed Avalon's first film, Double Dealersuggested he do a sequel to Summer City. Avalon paid Dickes a fee to write a script, which Avalon was unhappy with - but still keen on a sequel. After writing an outline and draft he contacted and hired Rod Hay to direct. Together they continued on the screenplay when Avalon contacted Denis Whitburn to do a final draft script.\n\nThe movie was originally announced in 1985 as The End of Innocence when it was to be written and directed by Alan Dickes and to star Christopher Pate.\n\nAvalon later wrote he felt Rod Hay and Denis Whitburn \"were definitely not on the same page\" when it came to the storyline, Rod wanted more action, whereas Denis was more into the character and history of the original. but during the shoot, Avalon d\n\nA large percentage of the $1.3 million budget was invested by Hotel Owner and developer Eric Jury. Avalon raised the balance through his Newcastle friends.\n\nFilming\nSome filming was done at Eric Porters Studio in North Sydney which had been bought by Jury to convert into a squash court. After the film was completed and released Jury approached Avalon re a partnership offer to update and convert the studios into a fully fledged movie studio. The deal done, Avalon modernized and rebuilt the Film Studio which became the AVALON FILM STUDIO with films and TV series booking it constantly..\n\nLocation filming was done at Catherine Bay. According to Avalon, there were some difficulties on the set involving Hay and the actors so he approached cast member Vince Martin to help smooth the relationship. Avalon later repaid Martin by offering him a chance to direct a feature. THE SHER MOUNTAIN KILLING MYSTERY.\n\nReception\nAvalon says he sold the film for over a million dollars to various territories before it had been even finished. He also had success with a \"Breaking Loose\" clothing range.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Breaking Loose at IMDb\n Breaking Loose at Oz Movies\n\nAustralian films", "Road to Paloma is a 2014 American drama thriller film directed by (in his directorial debut), produced by, co-written by, and starring Jason Momoa. Robert Homer Mollohan co-stars and co-wrote the script. It also co-stars Sarah Shahi, Lisa Bonet, Michael Raymond-James, Chris Browning, Timothy V. Murphy, and Wes Studi. The film was released on July 11, 2014.\n\nPlot\n\nAfter murdering his mother's rapist, Wolf, a Native American, flees from the law. Six months later he meets up with a drifter called Cash and heads north to his sister's property where he intends to go spread his mother's ashes, but with the law right behind him his dream to lay his mother to peace may come at a price.\n\nCast\nJason Momoa as Robert Wolf\nSarah Shahi as Eva\nLisa Bonet as Magdalena\nMichael Raymond-James as Irish\nWes Studi as Numay\nJill Wagner as Sandy\nTimothy V. Murphy as Williams\nChris Browning as Schaeffer\nJames Harvey Ward as Billy\nLinden Chiles as Bob\nSteve Reevis as Totonka\nTanoai Reed as Moose\nRobert Homer Mollohan as Cash\nLance Henriksen as FBI Agent Kelly\n\nProduction\nIn October 2011 Jason Momoa stated that he was writing, directing and acting in an upcoming project, Road to Paloma. Made for $600,000, filming began in February 2012 in Needles, California, where half of the filming was to be done. The rest took place in Los Angeles and Bishop.\n\nMomoa set Shovels & Rope and The Rolling Stones to score the music for the film.\n\nFilming\nFilming was scheduled to begin in February 2012 in Needles, California, where half of the filming was to be done with the rest set to take place in Los Angeles and Bishop.\n\nAdditional scenes filmed near Mexican Hat, Monument Valley and Kayenta. End scenes possibly Henrys Fork of Green River near Kings Peak in the high Uintas.\n\nRelease\nOn August 13, 2013 it was announced that WWE Studios and Anchor Bay Entertainment had acquired distribution rights in North America, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. A late 2013 release was planned. The film premiered at 2014 Sarasota Film Festival in April. The film gained positive reviews.\n\nReception\nRoad to Paloma got \"mixed to average\" reviews from Metacritic, receiving 44 out of a 100, based on 8 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 57%, based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10.\n\nFrank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter said that the film is \"straining mightily for a mythic quality and reaching a predictably melancholic, violent conclusion, Road to Paloma mainly comes across as a vanity project star vehicle. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times criticized \"the film's loose naturalism\" , but praised its strong acting, specifically \"Chris Browning, as a liaison between the F.B.I. and the reservation\", saying that in her opinion, \"[that was] especially enjoyable\".\n\nGary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times said that \"though there's nothing terribly profound or unique about actor Jason Momoa's feature writing-directing debut, 'Road to Paloma', it does prove an effective throwback to the loose-limbed, my-way-or-the-highway road movies of the Easy Rider era\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nRoad to Paloma at the ComingSoon.net\n\nFilms shot in Los Angeles\nFilms shot in California\n2010s road movies\nAmerican road movies\n2014 thriller drama films\nAmerican films\nAmerican thriller drama films\nWWE Studios films\nAmerican chase films\nMotorcycling films\nFilms about Native Americans\n2014 directorial debut films\n2014 drama films" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting", "Who was apart of the casting for the movie?", "With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "During filming what was some obstacles if any?", "Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict", "Who had to gain weight?", "Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "Did he feel emotions about having to gain weight?", "he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape", "Did he loose the weight after the filming was done?", "The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout." ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	Was there other famous actors that was apart of the movie?	6	Was there other famous actors that was a part of the movie Chapter 27 aside from Jared Leto?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	false	[ "Jesse D. Goins is an American film and television character actor. He was best known for his role in the 1980s television series The Greatest American Hero as Cyler Johnson.\n\nGoins' career in the film industry includes a role in the 1984 comedy movie Up the Creek as a soldier named Brown. However, his most famous film role is that of Joe Cox, a member of Clarence Boddicker's gang in the 1987 classic science fiction movie RoboCop and sequel archive footage RoboCop 3. His most recent role was in the 2009 movie The Ugly Truth.\n\nApart from The Greatest American Hero, Goins has made many guest appearances on television shows over the past three decades. These include Taxi, Diff'rent Strokes, Desperate Housewives, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Boy Meets World, Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, Cold Case, ER, Seinfeld, Boston Legal and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..\n\nFilmography\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican male film actors\nAfrican-American male actors\nAmerican male television actors", "Chief Pete Edochie, MON (born March 7, 1947) is a Nigerian actor. Edochie is considered one of Africa’s most talented actors, being honored with an Industry Merit Award by Africa Magic and Lifetime Achievement by Africa Film Academy Although a seasoned administrator and broadcaster, he came into prominence in the 1980s when he played the lead role of Okonkwo in an NTA adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s all-time best selling novel, Things Fall Apart. Edochie descends from the Igbo people of Nigeria and is a Catholic. In 2003, he was honored as a Member of the Order of the Niger by President Olusegun Obasanjo.\n\nPersonal life \nPete Edochie was born in Zaria on March 7, 1947. Pete celebrated his 70th birthday 2017 and he said he still feels strong despite having spent \"3 scores and ten\" years. \"Taking life easy and planning purposefully for everything makes life worth living as well as ageing gracefully\" he said.\n\nCareer \n\nEdochie got into radio broadcasting in 1967 at the age of 20 as a junior programmes assistant after which he was elevated to the level of a Director. He was director of programmes, but doubling sometimes as Deputy Managing Director and occasionally acting as Managing Director. He quit ABS because the government decided to politicise the affairs of their FM station, thereby resulting in the entire management being asked to move out, including him. He was to be the immediate successor to the MD but had to leave and enrol into the movie industry. Prior to that, he had featured in Things Fall Apart and had won an International Award. The BBC flew into Nigeria to interview him for his role in Things Fall Apart. He is credited with over 18 movies to his name.\n\nIn September 2017, Edochie endorsed Wikimedia movement in Nigeria by appearing in a video to increase awareness and use of Wikipedia among the older generations.\n\nThe Famous G8 \nIn 2005 the Actors' Guild of Nigeria placed Pete Edochie and several other actors, including Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Nkem Owoh, Ramsey Noah, Stella Damasus Aboderin, and Richard Mofe Damijo on a one-year ban from filming after they were said to have been collecting huge fees from producers due to their A-list celebrity status. The ban placed on these actors was seen as doom in the Nigerian film business, but currently, the actors are back in filming.\n\nKidnapped\n\nIn 2009 Edochie was kidnapped and later released by his captors unharmed.\n\nPete Edochie's look-alike \nIn 2019, Kingsley Abasili attracted media attention for his resemblance with the veteran actor Pete Edochie. Kingsley who looks like the younger version of Pete Edochie, was tagged Pete Edochie's look-alike.\n\nFatal Arrogance \n\nIn 2020, Pete Edochie played a lead role in a movie titled \"Fatal Arrogance\" which generated lots of controversy.\n\nThe Islamic Movement in Nigeria, IMN, also known as Shiites, attack the veteran Nollywood actor over his role in a new movie, insisting that the movie attempts to portray the union as a terrorist group.\n\nThe actor However insisted that he is not responsible for whatever issues the movie might generate insisting the movie producers should be held responsible\n\nFilmography \n\n Heavy Battle (2008)\n Test Your Heart (2008)\n Greatest Harvest (2007)\n Secret Pain (2007)\n Fair Game (2006)\n Holy Cross (2006)\n Lacrima (2006)\n Living with Death (2006) .... Mr. Harrison\n Passage of Kings (2006)\n Simple Baby (2006)\n Zoza (2006)\n Azima (2005)\n Baby Girl (2005)\n End of Money (2005)\n Living in Tears (2005)\n Never End (2005)\n No More War (2005)\n Ola... the Morning Sun (2005)\n Price of Ignorance (2005)\n The Price of Love: Life Is Beautiful (2005)\n Sacred Tradition (2005)\n The Tyrant (2005)\n Across the Niger (2004)\n Coronation (2004)\n Dogs Meeting (2004) .... Anacho\n Dons in Abuja (2004)\n The Heart of Man (2004)\n King of the Jungle (2004)\n Love from Above (2004)\n My Desire (2004)\n Negative Influence (2004)\n The Staff of Odo (2004)\n St. Michael (2004)\n Above Death: In God We Trust (2003)\n Arrows (2003)\n Billionaire Club (2003)\n Egg of Life (2003)\n Honey (2003)\n Love & Politics (2003)\n Miserable Wealth (2003)\n The Omega (2003)\n Onunaeyi: Seeds of Bondage (2003)\n Rejected Son (2003)\n Selfish Desire (2003)\n Super Love (2003)\n Tears in the Sun (2003)\n Tunnel of Love (2003)\n When God Says Yes (2003)\n Battle Line (2002)\n My Love (2002)\n Tears & Sorrows (2002)\n Greedy Genius (2001)\n Holy Ghost Fire (2001)\n Terrible Sin (2001)\n Oduduwa (2000)\n Set-Up (2000)\n Chain Reaction (1999)\n Lost Kingdom (1999)\n Narrow Escape (1999)\n Living in Darkness (1999)\n Rituals (1997)\n Things Fall Apart (1987), TV series\n Last Ofalla\n Lion throne\n Lion of Africa\n Igodo\n Evil men\n Monkey chop banana\n Idemili\n 50 days with Christ \n The Egg\nUnroyal (2020)\nLionheart (2018)\n Mummy Why (2016)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Interview with Pete Edochie at SunNewsOnline.com\n Pete Edochie official website\n\nIgbo male actors\nLiving people\n1947 births\nNigerian Roman Catholics\nMale actors from Enugu State\n20th-century Nigerian male actors\n21st-century Nigerian male actors\nNigerian male television actors\nNigerian male film actors\nLifetime Achievement Award Africa Movie Academy Award winners\nMembers of the Order of the Niger" ]
[ "Chapter 27", "Casting", "Who was apart of the casting for the movie?", "With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "During filming what was some obstacles if any?", "Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict", "Who had to gain weight?", "Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman.", "Did he feel emotions about having to gain weight?", "he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape", "Did he loose the weight after the filming was done?", "The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout.", "Was there other famous actors that was apart of the movie?", "I don't know." ]	C_f6042cbeb7c74a50a1181e9ced709496_0	What year was the casting?	7	What year was the casting for Chapter 27?	Chapter 27	The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained 67 pounds (30 kg) by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. CANNOTANSWER	2000	Chapter 27 is a 2007 biographical drama film depicting the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. It was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, based on the 1992 book Let Me Take You Down by Jack Jones, produced by Robert Salerno, and stars Jared Leto as Chapman. The film takes place in December 1980, and is intended to be an exploration of Chapman's psyche. Its title is a reference to J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters, and suggests a continuation of the book. As an independent production, it was picked up for distribution by Peace Arch Entertainment and premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received polarized reactions from critics. It later went into limited theatrical release in the United States on March 28, 2008. Chapter 27 was cited as one of the most controversial films of 2007. It received the Debut Feature Prize for Schaefer at the Zurich Film Festival, where Leto also won Best Performance for his portrayal of Chapman. The similar film The Killing of John Lennon was released in the United States the following year. Plot On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shocked the world by murdering 40-year-old musician, former member of The Beatles and activist, John Lennon, outside The Dakota, his New York apartment building. Chapman's motives were fabricated from pure delusion, fueled by an obsession with the fictional character Holden Caulfield and his similar misadventures in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In one instant, an anonymous, socially awkward and mentally unstable 25-year-old fan of The Beatles, who had fluctuated between idealizing Lennon and being overcome with a desire to kill him, altered the course of the history of music. A man whose painfully restless mind thrashes about uncontrollably between paranoia, sociopathic lying and delusion is summed up in such character revealing comments as "I'm too vulnerable for a world full of pain and lies" and "Everyone is cracked and broken. You have to find something to fix you. To give you what you need. To make you whole again." From his lies to cab drivers (identifying himself as The Beatles' sound engineer) to his socially unacceptable behavior around Jude, a young fan he meets outside The Dakota, to his argument with paparazzi photographer Paul, Chapman keeps the psychoses bubbling below the surface as his grasp on reality deteriorates into a completely misguided rage. Production Development The real Mark David Chapman is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility, on a guilty plea. Aside from two interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters, both in 1992, he has not spoken with the media. However, Chapman did reveal the mechanics of his unraveling during those three days in New York City to journalist Jack Jones. The interviews were published in 1992 as Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, a book of Chapman's recollections of his act of violence. Chapter 27 is based on this text. The title "Chapter 27" suggests a continuation of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which has twenty-six chapters, and which Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon. Chapman was obsessed with the book, to the point of attempting to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. According to the British music magazine Mojo, the title was also inspired by a chapter of Robert Rosen's book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon (2000) called "Chapter 27." Rosen's book explores the numerological meaning of the number 27, "the triple 9", a number of profound importance to John Lennon. Lennon was deeply interested in numerology, particularly Cheiro's Book of Numbers, along with nine and all its multiples. It was Chapman's goal, according to Rosen, to write Chapter 27 "in Lennon's blood". Rosen wrote on his blog, in late 2006, that "the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by Nowhere Man remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book." Like Chapman, Schaefer is a fan of both The Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, and said he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone." Cast The script took Schaefer four years to write, but when it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Robert Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman. For his role, Leto gained by drinking microwaved pints of ice cream mixed with soy sauce and olive oil every night. Gaining the weight, he said, was tougher than dieting himself into skeletal shape for his role as drug addict Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000). The abruptness of Leto's weight gain gave him gout. He had to use a wheelchair due to the stress of the sudden increase in weight put on his body. After the shooting of the film, Leto quickly went on a liquid diet. He explained, "I've been fasting ever since. I've been doing this very strange, like, lemon and cayenne pepper and water fast. I didn't eat any food for 10 days straight; I think I lost 20 pounds that first 10 days." Losing the excess weight after Chapter 27 proved a challenge. "It took about a year to get back to a place that felt semi-normal," he said; "I don't know if I'll ever be back to the place I was physically. I'd never do it again; it definitely gave me some problems." Twenty-two years prior to this film's production, actor Mark Lindsay Chapman, while professionally using the name Mark Lindsay, had been almost cast as John Lennon in the biopic John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985). Yoko Ono had been deeply involved in the production and had herself been initially impressed with his audition and approved his casting prior to discovering his full name was Mark Lindsay Chapman. She then nixed his casting on the grounds it was "bad karma", and a great deal of press attention was given to his having almost gotten the role. The director of Chapter 27, Jarrett Schaefer, auditioned many Lennon impersonators, but was especially impressed with Mark Lindsay Chapman's tape because he conveyed the "tough town" street-smart quality of Lennon that the impersonators failed to convey, as they always played Lennon as larger-than-life. Schaefer described Lennon as having a "chip on his shoulder and always cracking these cynical one-liners", and felt that actor Chapman was best at conveying this quality. Schaefer had some difficulty negotiating the casting with the film's producers because of Chapman's name. After Chapman was cast, he asked Chapman how he should be billed to which Chapman replied "Mark fucking Lindsay Chapman. That's my fucking name." Schaefer remarks that this was so reflective of how Lennon talked, it just reinforced his sense that Chapman was right for the part. Filming The film began shooting in Manhattan, New York in 2006. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," said Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside The Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy." "It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," said Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at The Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled." These scenes were shot at the Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Release The studio held Chapter 27'''s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007. The film was subsequently screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Festroia International Film Festival, Waterfront Film Festival, Mediterranean Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Oslo International Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the film a Restricted rating for language and some sexual content. Chapter 27 had a limited release in the United States on March 28, 2008 and earned $13,910 in a single theater over the opening weekend. The film's revenues increased by 11.4% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $15,500 in five theaters. Chapter 27 grossed $56,215 in the United States and $131,273 overseas. In total, the film has grossed $187,488 worldwide. Its international releases include Mexico ($107,443), Portugal ($20,433), and France ($3,397).Chapter 27 was released on DVD on April 28, 2008 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was released on the same formats on July 1, 2008 in exclusives, and everywhere September 30, 2008. The British edition contains a making-of and the trailer of the film, while the American edition includes only a behind-the-scenes. Critical reception When Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the film was debated fiercely by critics. MTV wrote that "the audience's reactions made it obvious that some people would love it and others would not." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 4.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite Jared Leto's committed performance, Chapter 27 fails to penetrate the mind of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Andrew O'Hehir from Salon wrote, "Some viewers may well find Chapter 27 sleazy or distasteful, and I won't argue the point. But Schaefer's movie creates its own highly compelling world, which is pretty much the prime directive in filmmaking." He stated that "Leto almost makes you feel how it happened," and called his acting a "highly compelling performance on many levels." He also enjoyed Lohan's performance. Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Chapter 27 is a smart attempt to distill the twisted psychology and motivation of Mark David Chapman, which we've all superficially gleaned through mass-media reports and intermittent updates on Chapman's incarceration." He praised Leto's acting saying, "Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It's a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason." He also praised Schaefer's direction, the other cast and crew. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars saying, "By the end of this modest, strange venture, Leto made me believe it was worth being forced to hang out on the sidewalk with this man, if only to get a creeping sense of what that might've been like." Upon the film's theatrical release, Richard Roeper wrote, "This is a very tough film to watch, especially for Beatles fans that worshipped Lennon, but it does provide a thought-provoking take on the inner workings of Mark David Chapman's twisted mind." San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin praised Schaefer's direction writing, "The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene." He also called Leto's performance utterly convincing. Rex Reed gave the film a positive review writing, "Even if you are only moderately curious about the events that led up to the pointless death of a musical icon, I think you'll find it a film of arm-twisting fascination." He praised Leto calling him unforgettable and writing, "it is the pulverizing concentration and almost somnambulistic intensity of Jared Leto that gives the film its life and pulse." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B saying, "Chapter 27 is far from flawless, but Leto disappears inside this angry, mouth-breathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News described Chapter 27 as "a claustrophobic drama that gets uncomfortably into the head of Mark David Chapman," and praised Leto saying, "Leto's drawling, blotchy, creepy performance sets it apart." Accolades Cultural impactChapter 27 was one of the most controversial films of the 2000s. In April 2006, an on-line petition group calling themselves Boycottchapter27.org campaigned to "pressurise movie theatres not to show the film, to stop the glorification of a murderer." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, expressed her thought saying, "This is another thing which will hurt me, I'm sure. I would rather not make a story out of Mr. Chapman at all, although I sympathize with the actors. They need to work. It's not just films, you're always talking about it [Lennon's murder]." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son, has gone on record calling the production and making of the film, including Lindsay Lohan's involvement with it, "tacky." Lennon also stated that Lohan understood his feelings and, despite his criticism, they were friends and he did not want to hurt her feelings. The film received accolades from critics who praised the depiction of the mental state of Mark David Chapman in the days leading up the murder of John Lennon in December 1980. See also The Killing of John Lennon'' (2006 film of same theme) References External links 2007 biographical drama films 2007 films American biographical drama films Biographical films about criminals Canadian biographical drama films Canadian films Canadian docudrama films English-language films Films about John Lennon The Beatles in film Films based on non-fiction books Films set in 1980 Films set in Manhattan Films shot in New York City American independent films American films Cultural depictions of John Lennon Cultural depictions of Yoko Ono Films scored by Anthony Marinelli Films about murder 2007 independent films Canadian independent films 2007 directorial debut films 2007 drama films	true	[ "Eddie Foy III (February 10, 1935 – November 3, 2018) was an American casting director and actor. He was director of casting for ABC and vice president of casting for NBC.\n\nFoy completed his career as a longstanding independent casting director and talent executive for The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon. For his contributions to the advancement of television casting, he was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.\n\nEarly years \nBorn in New York City, Foy was the son of Eddie Foy Jr. and Anna Marie McKenny Foy. He was the grandson of Eddie Foy Sr. He attended Riverdale Country School.\n\nEddie Foy was an officer in the California Army National Guard. He was commissioned a Second Lt on 21 July 1962 at Camp San Luis Obispo after completing the one year Officer Candidate School. He was assigned to Company A, 240th Signal Battalion. \n\nFoy debuted on stage at age 10 in a revival of The Red Mill on Broadway.\n\nCareer \nAfter a brief foray into acting, Foy became a casting director and over a 42-year period was involved in casting some of the most popular television shows of the era, including The Donna Reed Show, Naked City, Dennis the Menace, Route 66, Straightaway, The Farmer's Daughter, Gidget, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, The Flying Nun, That Girl, Julia, Room 222, Happy Days, Soap, Hill Street Blues, Charlie's Angels, Mork & Mindy, and Barney Miller, as well as TV movies and miniseries such as Roots and Shogun, and feature films, including Planet of the Apes and The Great White Hope.\n\nPersonal life \nOn September 16, 1995, Foy married Jan Standley in Sherman Oaks, California.\n\nFoy died on November 3, 2018, after a fall at his home in Denison, Iowa.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nEddie Foy III interview - A five-hour Television Academy interview, conducted in 2003.\n\n1935 births\n2018 deaths\n20th-century American male actors\nAmerican male film actors\nMale actors from New York City\nAmerican casting directors\nAmerican people of Irish descent\nRiverdale Country School alumni", "Allison Jones (born 1955) is an American casting director who is credited for helping bring together realistic ensemble casts for such popular television shows as Freaks and Geeks (for which she won an Emmy), Undeclared, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, What We Do in the Shadows, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, Curb Your Enthusiasm, United States of Tara, Parks and Recreation, Arrested Development (both of which she was also nominated for), and the US version of The Office.\n\nEarly life and education \nJones grew-up in Needham, Massachusetts. She was the second youngest child in a family with six children.\n\nJones graduated from Pomona College in 1977, with a degree in visual arts. During her time at Pomona, she cultivated an appreciation for what she called \"pure geek existence\" as her friends introduced her to Monty Python, The Firesign Theatre, and Saturday Night Live.\n\nCareer \nJones has cast popular television shows including Freaks and Geeks (for which she won an Emmy), Undeclared, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, What We Do in the Shadows, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, Curb Your Enthusiasm, United States of Tara, Arrested Development (both of which she was also nominated for), and the US version of The Office.\n\nJones has also cast several successful films, including The Dictator, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Knocked Up, and Booksmart. Jones also gained casting credit for Brüno. She has worked as a casting director in the entertainment business since 1982, with her first credited work for the television show being Family Ties and later in 1985, The Golden Girls. In 2015, her work as a casting director included the comedy film Get Hard, the Yahoo! Screen show Other Space, and the Netflix series Master of None.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1955 births\nAmerican casting directors\nLiving people\nPeople from Needham, Massachusetts\nPomona College alumni\nPrimetime Emmy Award winners" ]
[ "Enter Shikari", "The Mindsweep (2014-2017)" ]	C_84de9e5316c74f878c67146a49a89dbd_0	what was the mindsweep?	1	What album was The Mindsweep from the band Enter Shikari?	Enter Shikari	In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On January 12, 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. CANNOTANSWER	On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015.	Enter Shikari (sometimes stylised as enter: shikari and most commonly as ΣΠΤΣR SΗΦΚ∆RΦ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and drummer Rob Rolfe. In 2003, guitarist Rory Clewlow joined the band to complete its current lineup, and it adopted its current name. In 2006, they performed to a growing fanbase at Download Festival as well as a sold-out concert at the London Astoria. Their debut studio album, Take to the Skies, was released in 2007 and reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart, and has since been certified gold in the UK. Their second, Common Dreads, was released in 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 16; while their third, A Flash Flood of Colour, was released in 2012 and debuted on the chart at number 4. Both have since been certified silver in the UK. The band spent a considerable amount of time supporting the latter release through the A Flash Flood of Colour World Tour, before beginning work on a fourth studio album, The Mindsweep, which was released in 2015. Their fifth studio album The Spark was released in 2017. Their sixth album Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible was released in April 2020. Enter Shikari have their own record label, Ambush Reality. However, they have also signed distribution deals with several major labels to help with worldwide distribution. Their eclectic musical style combines influences from rock music genres with those from various electronic music genres. History Beginnings (1999–2006) In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed, consisting of Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar, and Rob Rolfe on drums. They released an EP called Commit No Nuisance, which featured the tracks "Perfect Pygmalion", "Look Inside", "Torch Song", "Honesty Box" and "Fake". In 2003, with the addition of guitarist Rory Clewlow, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. The band was named after Shikari, a boat belonging to vocalist Rou Reynolds' uncle. "Shikari is a Hindi word for hunter." After the band's lineup and name change, Reynolds focused his musical efforts on vocals and electronics instead of guitar. During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs (Nodding Acquaintance, Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour and Sorry You're Not a Winner) that were available from their gigs and their website, featuring original versions of some songs that were eventually rerecorded for their debut album, Take to the Skies. They would frequently make appearances at their local youth club, The Pioneer Club, where they would play alongside other local bands. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005 (no such EP materialized, although recordings surfaced online). For this the first versions of "Return To Energiser" and "Labyrinth" were recorded. Early versions of "OK Time for Plan B" and "We Can Breathe in Space" were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. It was at this time that Kerrang! Radio's Alex Baker picked up on the band, and as he didn't have a physical release to play, he streamed "OK Time For Plan B" off the band's Myspace page, straight onto the airwaves. In August 2006 they released a video of the single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes Store. Their 1st physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on 30 October 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]). This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on the EA Sports video game titles NHL 08 and Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/Myspace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They also had interviews with popular music press such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. On 4 November 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness). They also made the NME'''s "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party). The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on 5 March 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band released a compilation album titled The Zone just after the debut album, this contained various demo tracks and previously released singles. Take to the Skies (2007–08) The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and on 25 March it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album. During the month of March 2007 it was announced they would be playing at Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On 30 March 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME. Enter Shikari had performed over 500 times by 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This was followed by three more North American tours. On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day. Common Dreads (2009–2010) It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen", from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009 with "All Eyes on the Saint" as its B side. The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track.Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at No. 16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single to be released from Common Dreads was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7-inch vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked", made of clips of a live show played at Norwich UEA, was also released. A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that "we’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum 'n' bass remixes so we'll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single." However it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed. The single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, as well as the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1 on 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010. Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick. On 18 and 19 December, Enter Shikari hosted two Christmas Party shows at The Forum in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Special guest supports included Rolo Tomassi, Young Guns, Dark Stares, Don Broco and The Qemists. The audio from the shows was released via the band's limited edition box-set Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3. A Flash Flood of Colour (2011–12) On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7-inch vinyl on 29 November 2010. In June 2011, the band signed to Hopeless Records in the US, and embarked on the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. In mid-2011, the band released another one-off single called "Quelle Surprise" before releasing the first single, "Sssnakepit" and "Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" in September and December, respectively, off their third album. The band released A Flash Flood of Colour on 16 January 2012, and played three album release shows in London, Kingston upon Thames, and Leeds. At the end of the first week of the album being released, the album reached number four in the U.K charts. Later that year, the band began their first tour of A Flash Flood of Colour in February by heading out to Tokyo, Japan for one show, before playing Soundwave Festival, including a couple of 'sideshows' on their off-days. The band continued their tour across the world, travelling to the United States, South Africa, Europe, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Pukkelpop, FM4 Frequency Festival, Sonisphere in Spain, T in the Park, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and many more, ranging from the end of May to the start of September. In Summer 2012's Kerrang! Awards, the band scooped 'Best Live Band' for the second time, along with Rou Reynolds winning 'Hero of the Year.' They were also nominated for best album, but lost out to Mastodon. In November 2012 the band announced the launch of their own beer "Sssnakepit", a 5% lager brewed in conjunction with Signature Brew, which was launched in Manchester and sold on the 'A Flash Flood of Christmas' tour at venues across the UK. The band were also nominated for Best British Band and Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards 2013, but lost out to Bring Me the Horizon and Black Veil Brides respectively. Rat Race EP (2013) In April 2013, the band released a non-album single named "The Paddington Frisk", later announcing that it was part of a then unnamed three track EP due for release later that year (Rat Race EP). On 5 June 2013, the band announced via their official Twitter that they were recording a video for the new single "Radiate", which was first played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show on 10 June. The song was his Single of the Week. 5 months later, "Rat Race" was released, the three tracks were then amalgamated into the Rat Race EP, along with a trance remix of "Radiate" created by Reynold's side project – Shikari Sound System. The band headed out on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland throughout April and May, purposefully playing in towns that don't usually get shows, as a thank you to those fans who usually have to travel to larger cities all the time to see bands. Support for the tour was Hacktivist. This tour was the first time the songs "The Paddington Frisk" was played, as well as "Juggernauts" b-side "All Eyes on the Saint" from 2009 The Mindsweep (2014–2016) In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On 12 January 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sounds compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. The Spark (2017–2019) On 1 August 2017, Enter Shikari announced their new album The Spark with its lead single "Live Outside". The album was released on 22 September. To promote the album, the band toured UK, Europe, Japan, and North America on their The Spark World Tour. On 15 February 2019, the band released a pair of limited edition live albums, Take to the Skies. Live in Moscow. May 2017 and Live at Alexandra Palace 2 both of which were recorded in 2017 on their Take to the Skies 10 Year Anniversary Tour and their The Spark World Tour. In 2018 the band embarked on an extensive tour of the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, entitled "Stop the Clocks", during which they performed a new song of the same name. The band released the song as a single on 12 August 2019 shortly before their performances at the 2019 Reading and Leeds Festivals where they played 5 different sets across the weekend. Following this, the band resumed their Stop the Clocks tour with a twelve-date American leg, which singer Rou Reynolds said would "bring the whole 'Spark-era' full circle." Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020–present) In an interview with Kerrang while the band was in Australia for Good Things Festival, they revealed their next album will be the "most definitive Shikari record to date" and will feature something from every album. On 10 February 2020, a new single called "The Dreamer's Hotel", stylized as { The Dreamer's Hotel }, premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. The same day, they announced that their new album would be called Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible and would release on 17 April 2020. An accompanying music video was released for The Dreamer's Hotel on 5 March 2020, almost a month after the initial release. The video features an unusual use of over-the-top rainbow effects, fitting with the rainbow motif of the album. "The King" was the album's second single, released on 8 March 2020. Frontman Rou described this track as a "lesson in patience and forgiveness" to Kerrang as they have worked on this single song for such a long time. "T.I.N.A." was the third single released on 22 March 2020. The title stands for "there is no alternative". Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible hit No. 2 on the UK album charts on 30 April 2020, 13 days after its release on 17 April. This was the band's fifth album to reach Top 10 and the third consecutive major album. The band will support the album release with a full UK tour. On 16 April 2021, they released Moratorium (Broadcasts from the Interruption) without advance notice. It includes songs from their past two albums that have been reworked, re-imagined, recorded live or as acoustic renditions. On 24 November 2021 through 10 February 2022, Enter Shikari headed out for a brief European tour. On 25 March 2022, they will pick up in Texas for a North American tour. Later on 16 July 2022, the band will release their film, Live At Vada, directed by Tom Pullen. Musical style, lyrical themes and influences Enter Shikari's musical style has been variously described as alternative rock, electronic rock, post-hardcore, electronicore (which they are considered to have pioneered), experimental rock, post-rock, and on their early releases, metalcore and synth-metal. It is recognisable for combining rock music (especially punk rock and hardcore punk) with elements of various electronic music genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, techno, electronica and trance. It features breakdowns, heavy metal and hardcore-influenced instrumentation, dub-inspired "wobbles", anthemic choruses, drum and bass tempos and an alternation between sung, screamed (or occasionally growled) and rapped vocals, with all members contributing to vocals. Enter Shikari's lyrics, written by frontman Rou Reynolds, are often politically charged. In a 2015 interview, Kerrang! Magazine wrote: "With Shikari a rare, political voice on the UK rock scene, Rou remains baffled by bands 'labelling themselves as punk that aren't speaking about anything of importance'. 'To us it's second nature,' he says. 'It's what this music is for. If you take out the social commentary, it's not punk, it's just noisy pop.'" At the same time, Reynolds "[doesn't] care if people don't read the lyrics" and only "appreciate Shikari as a noisy pop group". Although not all of the band's lyrics are political, "even when [Enter Shikari write] a love song, [Reynolds wants] to make sure [they] reclaim the love song from all the shit, vapid love songs on the charts." He also stated that the band's general message is that "if we base our lives around love and unity, then that's all that matters." Political issues that the band have written about in their lyrics include – climate change and the misuse of natural resources, Donald Trump's presidency of the United States, the use of nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear programme, the privatisation of the UK's National Health Service, and capitalism. Enter Shikari's lyrics have also centred around more personal themes throughout their career, such as lead singer Rou Reynolds' anxiety, depression, mental illness, self-pity and the loss of a loved one or idolised celebrity figure. Their album The Spark in particular delves more into personal issues within the band, with Reynolds stating in an interview with The Independent, regarding lyrical themes: "What I was trying to do with this album in marrying the personal and the political is to ensure that human vulnerability is laid bare, and to not be afraid to speak about emotions." He elaborates by stating that "I don’t think I could have done it [writing more personal lyrics] before this record. So much happened over those two years [since the release of their previous album], globally and in my personal life, so before. I was kind of comfortable. I have a very finely attuned cringe muscle, I don’t like writing about things that have been written about a thousand times. Some of it is maybe even a self-confidence thing, feeling as though I don’t have much to offer in terms of art that helps other people. But seeing as 2015 was the year of hell for me, it wasn’t just that I wanted to write a more personal record, I had to. There was no way of not doing it". In an interview following the release of A Flash Flood of Colour, guitarist Rory Clewlow stated that the band's influences are numerous, but include Refused, the Prodigy, At the Drive-In, Sick of It All, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, Igor Stravinsky and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and that "most of [their] sound was originally developed through going to see local acts in and around [their] home town." Rou Reynolds has cited British pop music from the 20th century as being a major influence on his songwriting, particularly on their album The Spark, with The Beatles, The Damned, Joy Division and New Order being key influences on him. Ambush Reality Ambush Reality is an independent record label owned by Enter Shikari. Although originally it was exclusively for the release of Enter Shikari's albums and songs, on 21 July 2014 the band announced via Facebook and Twitter they were releasing a song by Nottingham hardcore band Baby Godzilla (now known as Heck). Formed in July 2006, it is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they had to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies came out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS Entertainment Group. As of 21 June 2011, Enter Shikari's releases in North America are via independent record label Hopeless Records. Side projects Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum and bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs. His most recent EP, released for ActionAid, features samples from ActionAid's project work in Ghana. Rolfe also DJs under the moniker "Sgt. Rolfy", regularly playing slots at the band's aftershow parties. He plays a range of sounds, including trance, drum & bass, dubstep and even classical and parody tunes too. Clewlow recently released his first remix, simply as "Rory C", for Don Broco's track "Priorities", from their new record. Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company, Step Up Clothing. On 25 April 2013 the band announced a side project called Shikari Sound System, an alter-ego of the group. The band announced it on their Facebook page straight after they had been announced to play at Reading and Leeds Festival during the summer. Frontman Rou assured fans on his Twitter page that it would be "The same 4 scallywags but playing a live dance set". Shikari Sound System played their debut set at The Reading and Leeds festivals and were joined by members of hardcore band Hacktivist as well as Danny Price who now regularly hosts SSS DJ sets. Shikari Sound System were announced for Slam Dunk Festival on 24 February 2016 and have done regular slots in the UK and Europe. In 2017, Rou Reynolds released a book named Dear Future Historians, a song-by-song lyrical analysis of the band's work including photos. By popular demand, the book was revisited and expanded in 2019 to include music released since its original publication, and received another strictly limited edition run. Members Rou Reynolds – lead vocals, programming, synthesizer, keyboards, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, trumpet, percussion (1999–present) Chris Batten – bass, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion (1999–present) Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1999–present) Rory Clewlow – lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards, synthesizer (2003–present) DiscographyStudio albums Take to the Skies (2007) Common Dreads (2009) A Flash Flood of Colour (2012) The Mindsweep (2015) The Spark (2017) Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020) Accolades \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2006\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2006: Best British Newcomer\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="7"\|2007\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2007: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Spirit of Independence\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|"Sorry You're Not a Winner"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Single \|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Take to the Skies\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2009\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2009: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2010\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2010: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6"\|2012\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Rou Reynolds\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Hero of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards: Hardest Working Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|2013\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2013: Best Fan Community\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="3"\|2015 \|\| style="text-align:center;"\|"Anaesthetist"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best Single\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|The Mindsweep\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2015: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2016\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2016: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2017\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Heavy Music Awards 2017: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2018\|\|style="text-align:center;"\|The Spark\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2018: Best Album\|\| \|}Miscellaneous''' Rock Sound's poll for 'who will make it in 2007'. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Best Live Band 2011. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Who Will Own 2012. NME's User's Poll: Best Act at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2012. References External links British post-hardcore musical groups Electronicore musical groups English alternative rock groups English experimental rock groups English electronic music groups 2003 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1999 Musical quartets Kerrang! Awards winners Hopeless Records artists Political music groups Musical groups from St Albans	true	[ "Enter Shikari are a British rock band formed in 2003. Their debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and reached number 4 in the UK Albums Chart. The album was later certified Gold. Their second album, titled Common Dreads, was released on 15 June 2009 and peaked at number 16. Their third studio album A Flash Flood of Colour was released on 16 January 2012 and debuted at number 4. Their fourth studio album The Mindsweep was released on 19 January 2015 to critical acclaim.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nRemix albums\n\nLive albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nPromotional singles\n\nRemixes\nThere have been numerous remixes of Enter Shikari songs:\n\nVideography\n\nVideo albums \n2007 – Live at the Astoria (bonus DVD with Take to the Skies)\n2011 – Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3\n2012 – Phenakistiscope (bonus DVD with A Flash Flood of Colour)\n2012 – Live in London. W6. March 2012. - Bootleg Series Volume 4\n2013 – Live in the Barrowland - Bootleg Series Volume 5\n2015 – Live in St. Petersburg, Russia - Bootleg Series Volume 6 (bonus DVD with The Mindsweep)\n2015 – Live at Woodstock, Poland 2013 + Live at Download Festival, UK 2013 (bonus DVD with The Mindsweep)\n\nMusic videos\n\nAs featured artist\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\nA \"Slipshod (Urbandawn Remix)\" did not enter the UK Singles Chart, but peaked at number 3 on the UK Physical Singles chart and at number 2 on the UK Vinyl Singles chart.\n\nDiscographies of British artists\nPost-hardcore group discographies\ndiscog", "The Mindsweep is the fourth studio album by English rock band Enter Shikari, released on 19 January 2015 through Ambush Reality, PIAS Recordings and Hopeless Records. It was recorded in 2014 with producer Dan Weller.\n\nBackground\n\nOn 26 June 2014 the band performed their new song \"Anaesthetist\" for the first time and uploaded a video on their YouTube Channel of them doing a practice run. Then they played it all of the dates that they played on Vans Warped Tour.\n\nProduction, lyrical themes\nWhen writing lyrics for the album, frontman Rou Reynolds researched the topics he addressed, such as climate change and the global financial crisis, to make sure he was making accurate statements.\n\nReynolds said the album was as diverse as A Flash Flood of Colour in the sense that every track is different, \"cover[ing] all corners of the musical spectrum.\" When choosing \"which of the tracks they've been working on should make it on to [the album]\", Enter Shikari found it hard to decide. Therefore, they made a graph where \"the vertical axis charted the heaviness of the songs [while] the horizontal one [charted] their location on a scale ranging from 'accessible' to 'experimental'\", and \"where clusters indicated several songs covering the same territory, only one was allowed to make the cut\", so that the album would feature something \"from everywhere within [the band's] spectrum of sounds.\"\n\nReynolds said \"The Last Garrison\" is a \"celebration of the fact that we’re alive, and the magnitude of luck it took for you to even exist at all.\" Reynolds said \"Torn Apart\" talks about the \"uselessness of the concept of ‘race’ when it comes to genetics\". He added that the song's riff was one of the band's oldest riffs, dating from the period that they wrote \"Sorry You're Not a Winner\" but \"only felt right to develop it now\".\n\nThe song \"Anaesthetist\" is about the privatisation of the National Health Service. On the song, frontman Rou Reynolds stated \"We seem to have reached a stage of such capitalistic fervour, that we believe it acceptable to punish people for ill health. By charging for healthcare we act as if illness is nothing but one’s own problem, but what is the purpose and advantage of 'civilisation' if it is not helping the most vulnerable within society? The lottery of birth can offer us a wealth of bad luck when it comes to our health and the safety nets are being pulled in as the desire to boost profit overtakes the desire to help people.\"\n\nRelease\nThe album was announced on 8 October 2014, along with a European and UK tour in support. On 20 October, \"The Last Garrison\" was played on Zane Lowe's Hottest Record on BBC Radio 1, and was the first single off of the album. The song's official music video was uploaded to Hopeless Records' YouTube channel on 11 November. The video was filmed in a studio on what Reynolds called an \"anti-stage\": \"basically a sunken stage below the level of the rest of the room.\" He mentioned that all of the chorus parts were done with a \"sunset sort of vibe\". He added that the lightning used cause the band to be hot, \"and then we did the ‘dry’ storm stuff, so we were being bombarded by bits of polystyrene.\"\n\nEnter Shikari streamed the song \"Never Let Go of the Microscope\" on their YouTube channel on 26 November, and several weeks later they released the video for \"Slipshod\", an iTunes-only bonus track, on 15 December through the same channels. The video is a satirical cartoonised skit featuring the members of the band dining at a restaurant and being dissatisfied with their food, as per the lyrics of the song.\n\nOn 19 December Enter Shikari announced a headlining North American tour in support of The Mindsweep with Stray From the Path, I the Mighty, Hundredth (3/23-3/31) and A Lot Like Birds (4/01-4/28). To celebrate the release of the album, the band opened a pop up shop in Camden. On 5 January 2015, \"Anaesthetist\" was released as the second single taken from the album, accompanied with a music video. On 12 January, the full album was streamed online several days before its intended release date. Later on throughout the album's release cycle, \"Torn Apart\" was released as a promotional single on 8 June 2015. The song later received its own music video.\n\nCritical reception\n\nThe album received acclaim from music critics: on Metacritic, a review aggregator site, the album received a score of 89/100 (indicating \"universal acclaim\") based on 6 reviews. The album received maximum ratings from Alternative Press and Kerrang! The latter called The Mindsweep the band's \"most diverse album to date\", contrasting the \"punk thrash\" of \"There's a Price on Your Head\" with \"Dear Future Historians...\", which they described as a \"Radiohead-esque piano ballad\". They also compared the style of \"Anaesthetist\" to that of the Prodigy. The album was included at number 4 on Rock Sounds top 50 releases of 2015 list.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nEnter Shikari\n Roughton \"Rou\" Reynolds – vocals, keys, piano, electronics, trumpet, orchestral arrangements, lyrics, guitars\n Liam \"Rory\" Clewlow – guitars, vocals\n Chris Batten – bass, co-vocals, keys\n Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, vocals\n\nAdditional musicians\n Paul Sartin – violin on \"The One True Colour\", \"Torn Apart\", \"There's a Price on Your Head\", \"Dear Future Historians...\" and \"The Appeal & the Mindsweep II\"; oboe on \"Dear Future Historians...\"\n Beth Porter – cello on \"The One True Colour\", \"Torn Apart\", \"There's a Price on Your Head\", \"Dear Future Historians...\" and \"The Appeal & the Mindsweep II\"\n Jackie Oates – violin on \"The One True Colour\", \"Torn Apart\", \"There's a Price on Your Head\", \"Dear Future Historians...\" and \"The Appeal & the Mindsweep II\"\n Alex Harman, Ashley King (of St Albans), Bill Ransom, Chris Graham, Daniel Griffin, Fran Padormo, Ian Drayner, Jamie Littler, Louis Springfield, Nathan Killham, Nick 'Balls' Uperton, Sam Baker, Sam Newham, Simon Hofmeister, Vivien Vincze, William Tallis – gang vocals\n Alban Reynolds – trombone on \"Torn Apart\", \"Interlude\", \"Dear Future Historians...\" and \"The Appeal & the Mindsweep II\"\n\nProduction\n Dan Weller and Enter Shikari – production\n Tim Morris – studio engineer, additional production on \"The Last Garrison\"\n Jeremy Wheatley (for 365 Artists) – mixing\n Stuart Hawkes (at Metropolis Group, London) – mastering\n Pip Newby - A&R\n Luke Insect Studio – art direction\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\nCitations\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Mindsweep at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)\n\n2015 albums\nEnter Shikari albums\nAmbush Reality albums\nHopeless Records albums\nAlbums produced by Dan Weller" ]
[ "Enter Shikari", "The Mindsweep (2014-2017)", "what was the mindsweep?", "On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015." ]	C_84de9e5316c74f878c67146a49a89dbd_0	did the album do well?	2	Did the album, The Mindsweep, from the band Enter Shikari, do well?	Enter Shikari	In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On January 12, 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. CANNOTANSWER	The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist".	Enter Shikari (sometimes stylised as enter: shikari and most commonly as ΣΠΤΣR SΗΦΚ∆RΦ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and drummer Rob Rolfe. In 2003, guitarist Rory Clewlow joined the band to complete its current lineup, and it adopted its current name. In 2006, they performed to a growing fanbase at Download Festival as well as a sold-out concert at the London Astoria. Their debut studio album, Take to the Skies, was released in 2007 and reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart, and has since been certified gold in the UK. Their second, Common Dreads, was released in 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 16; while their third, A Flash Flood of Colour, was released in 2012 and debuted on the chart at number 4. Both have since been certified silver in the UK. The band spent a considerable amount of time supporting the latter release through the A Flash Flood of Colour World Tour, before beginning work on a fourth studio album, The Mindsweep, which was released in 2015. Their fifth studio album The Spark was released in 2017. Their sixth album Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible was released in April 2020. Enter Shikari have their own record label, Ambush Reality. However, they have also signed distribution deals with several major labels to help with worldwide distribution. Their eclectic musical style combines influences from rock music genres with those from various electronic music genres. History Beginnings (1999–2006) In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed, consisting of Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar, and Rob Rolfe on drums. They released an EP called Commit No Nuisance, which featured the tracks "Perfect Pygmalion", "Look Inside", "Torch Song", "Honesty Box" and "Fake". In 2003, with the addition of guitarist Rory Clewlow, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. The band was named after Shikari, a boat belonging to vocalist Rou Reynolds' uncle. "Shikari is a Hindi word for hunter." After the band's lineup and name change, Reynolds focused his musical efforts on vocals and electronics instead of guitar. During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs (Nodding Acquaintance, Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour and Sorry You're Not a Winner) that were available from their gigs and their website, featuring original versions of some songs that were eventually rerecorded for their debut album, Take to the Skies. They would frequently make appearances at their local youth club, The Pioneer Club, where they would play alongside other local bands. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005 (no such EP materialized, although recordings surfaced online). For this the first versions of "Return To Energiser" and "Labyrinth" were recorded. Early versions of "OK Time for Plan B" and "We Can Breathe in Space" were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. It was at this time that Kerrang! Radio's Alex Baker picked up on the band, and as he didn't have a physical release to play, he streamed "OK Time For Plan B" off the band's Myspace page, straight onto the airwaves. In August 2006 they released a video of the single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes Store. Their 1st physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on 30 October 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]). This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on the EA Sports video game titles NHL 08 and Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/Myspace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They also had interviews with popular music press such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. On 4 November 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness). They also made the NME'''s "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party). The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on 5 March 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band released a compilation album titled The Zone just after the debut album, this contained various demo tracks and previously released singles. Take to the Skies (2007–08) The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and on 25 March it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album. During the month of March 2007 it was announced they would be playing at Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On 30 March 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME. Enter Shikari had performed over 500 times by 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This was followed by three more North American tours. On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day. Common Dreads (2009–2010) It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen", from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009 with "All Eyes on the Saint" as its B side. The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track.Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at No. 16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single to be released from Common Dreads was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7-inch vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked", made of clips of a live show played at Norwich UEA, was also released. A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that "we’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum 'n' bass remixes so we'll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single." However it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed. The single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, as well as the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1 on 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010. Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick. On 18 and 19 December, Enter Shikari hosted two Christmas Party shows at The Forum in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Special guest supports included Rolo Tomassi, Young Guns, Dark Stares, Don Broco and The Qemists. The audio from the shows was released via the band's limited edition box-set Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3. A Flash Flood of Colour (2011–12) On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7-inch vinyl on 29 November 2010. In June 2011, the band signed to Hopeless Records in the US, and embarked on the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. In mid-2011, the band released another one-off single called "Quelle Surprise" before releasing the first single, "Sssnakepit" and "Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" in September and December, respectively, off their third album. The band released A Flash Flood of Colour on 16 January 2012, and played three album release shows in London, Kingston upon Thames, and Leeds. At the end of the first week of the album being released, the album reached number four in the U.K charts. Later that year, the band began their first tour of A Flash Flood of Colour in February by heading out to Tokyo, Japan for one show, before playing Soundwave Festival, including a couple of 'sideshows' on their off-days. The band continued their tour across the world, travelling to the United States, South Africa, Europe, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Pukkelpop, FM4 Frequency Festival, Sonisphere in Spain, T in the Park, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and many more, ranging from the end of May to the start of September. In Summer 2012's Kerrang! Awards, the band scooped 'Best Live Band' for the second time, along with Rou Reynolds winning 'Hero of the Year.' They were also nominated for best album, but lost out to Mastodon. In November 2012 the band announced the launch of their own beer "Sssnakepit", a 5% lager brewed in conjunction with Signature Brew, which was launched in Manchester and sold on the 'A Flash Flood of Christmas' tour at venues across the UK. The band were also nominated for Best British Band and Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards 2013, but lost out to Bring Me the Horizon and Black Veil Brides respectively. Rat Race EP (2013) In April 2013, the band released a non-album single named "The Paddington Frisk", later announcing that it was part of a then unnamed three track EP due for release later that year (Rat Race EP). On 5 June 2013, the band announced via their official Twitter that they were recording a video for the new single "Radiate", which was first played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show on 10 June. The song was his Single of the Week. 5 months later, "Rat Race" was released, the three tracks were then amalgamated into the Rat Race EP, along with a trance remix of "Radiate" created by Reynold's side project – Shikari Sound System. The band headed out on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland throughout April and May, purposefully playing in towns that don't usually get shows, as a thank you to those fans who usually have to travel to larger cities all the time to see bands. Support for the tour was Hacktivist. This tour was the first time the songs "The Paddington Frisk" was played, as well as "Juggernauts" b-side "All Eyes on the Saint" from 2009 The Mindsweep (2014–2016) In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On 12 January 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sounds compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. The Spark (2017–2019) On 1 August 2017, Enter Shikari announced their new album The Spark with its lead single "Live Outside". The album was released on 22 September. To promote the album, the band toured UK, Europe, Japan, and North America on their The Spark World Tour. On 15 February 2019, the band released a pair of limited edition live albums, Take to the Skies. Live in Moscow. May 2017 and Live at Alexandra Palace 2 both of which were recorded in 2017 on their Take to the Skies 10 Year Anniversary Tour and their The Spark World Tour. In 2018 the band embarked on an extensive tour of the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, entitled "Stop the Clocks", during which they performed a new song of the same name. The band released the song as a single on 12 August 2019 shortly before their performances at the 2019 Reading and Leeds Festivals where they played 5 different sets across the weekend. Following this, the band resumed their Stop the Clocks tour with a twelve-date American leg, which singer Rou Reynolds said would "bring the whole 'Spark-era' full circle." Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020–present) In an interview with Kerrang while the band was in Australia for Good Things Festival, they revealed their next album will be the "most definitive Shikari record to date" and will feature something from every album. On 10 February 2020, a new single called "The Dreamer's Hotel", stylized as { The Dreamer's Hotel }, premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. The same day, they announced that their new album would be called Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible and would release on 17 April 2020. An accompanying music video was released for The Dreamer's Hotel on 5 March 2020, almost a month after the initial release. The video features an unusual use of over-the-top rainbow effects, fitting with the rainbow motif of the album. "The King" was the album's second single, released on 8 March 2020. Frontman Rou described this track as a "lesson in patience and forgiveness" to Kerrang as they have worked on this single song for such a long time. "T.I.N.A." was the third single released on 22 March 2020. The title stands for "there is no alternative". Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible hit No. 2 on the UK album charts on 30 April 2020, 13 days after its release on 17 April. This was the band's fifth album to reach Top 10 and the third consecutive major album. The band will support the album release with a full UK tour. On 16 April 2021, they released Moratorium (Broadcasts from the Interruption) without advance notice. It includes songs from their past two albums that have been reworked, re-imagined, recorded live or as acoustic renditions. On 24 November 2021 through 10 February 2022, Enter Shikari headed out for a brief European tour. On 25 March 2022, they will pick up in Texas for a North American tour. Later on 16 July 2022, the band will release their film, Live At Vada, directed by Tom Pullen. Musical style, lyrical themes and influences Enter Shikari's musical style has been variously described as alternative rock, electronic rock, post-hardcore, electronicore (which they are considered to have pioneered), experimental rock, post-rock, and on their early releases, metalcore and synth-metal. It is recognisable for combining rock music (especially punk rock and hardcore punk) with elements of various electronic music genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, techno, electronica and trance. It features breakdowns, heavy metal and hardcore-influenced instrumentation, dub-inspired "wobbles", anthemic choruses, drum and bass tempos and an alternation between sung, screamed (or occasionally growled) and rapped vocals, with all members contributing to vocals. Enter Shikari's lyrics, written by frontman Rou Reynolds, are often politically charged. In a 2015 interview, Kerrang! Magazine wrote: "With Shikari a rare, political voice on the UK rock scene, Rou remains baffled by bands 'labelling themselves as punk that aren't speaking about anything of importance'. 'To us it's second nature,' he says. 'It's what this music is for. If you take out the social commentary, it's not punk, it's just noisy pop.'" At the same time, Reynolds "[doesn't] care if people don't read the lyrics" and only "appreciate Shikari as a noisy pop group". Although not all of the band's lyrics are political, "even when [Enter Shikari write] a love song, [Reynolds wants] to make sure [they] reclaim the love song from all the shit, vapid love songs on the charts." He also stated that the band's general message is that "if we base our lives around love and unity, then that's all that matters." Political issues that the band have written about in their lyrics include – climate change and the misuse of natural resources, Donald Trump's presidency of the United States, the use of nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear programme, the privatisation of the UK's National Health Service, and capitalism. Enter Shikari's lyrics have also centred around more personal themes throughout their career, such as lead singer Rou Reynolds' anxiety, depression, mental illness, self-pity and the loss of a loved one or idolised celebrity figure. Their album The Spark in particular delves more into personal issues within the band, with Reynolds stating in an interview with The Independent, regarding lyrical themes: "What I was trying to do with this album in marrying the personal and the political is to ensure that human vulnerability is laid bare, and to not be afraid to speak about emotions." He elaborates by stating that "I don’t think I could have done it [writing more personal lyrics] before this record. So much happened over those two years [since the release of their previous album], globally and in my personal life, so before. I was kind of comfortable. I have a very finely attuned cringe muscle, I don’t like writing about things that have been written about a thousand times. Some of it is maybe even a self-confidence thing, feeling as though I don’t have much to offer in terms of art that helps other people. But seeing as 2015 was the year of hell for me, it wasn’t just that I wanted to write a more personal record, I had to. There was no way of not doing it". In an interview following the release of A Flash Flood of Colour, guitarist Rory Clewlow stated that the band's influences are numerous, but include Refused, the Prodigy, At the Drive-In, Sick of It All, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, Igor Stravinsky and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and that "most of [their] sound was originally developed through going to see local acts in and around [their] home town." Rou Reynolds has cited British pop music from the 20th century as being a major influence on his songwriting, particularly on their album The Spark, with The Beatles, The Damned, Joy Division and New Order being key influences on him. Ambush Reality Ambush Reality is an independent record label owned by Enter Shikari. Although originally it was exclusively for the release of Enter Shikari's albums and songs, on 21 July 2014 the band announced via Facebook and Twitter they were releasing a song by Nottingham hardcore band Baby Godzilla (now known as Heck). Formed in July 2006, it is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they had to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies came out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS Entertainment Group. As of 21 June 2011, Enter Shikari's releases in North America are via independent record label Hopeless Records. Side projects Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum and bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs. His most recent EP, released for ActionAid, features samples from ActionAid's project work in Ghana. Rolfe also DJs under the moniker "Sgt. Rolfy", regularly playing slots at the band's aftershow parties. He plays a range of sounds, including trance, drum & bass, dubstep and even classical and parody tunes too. Clewlow recently released his first remix, simply as "Rory C", for Don Broco's track "Priorities", from their new record. Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company, Step Up Clothing. On 25 April 2013 the band announced a side project called Shikari Sound System, an alter-ego of the group. The band announced it on their Facebook page straight after they had been announced to play at Reading and Leeds Festival during the summer. Frontman Rou assured fans on his Twitter page that it would be "The same 4 scallywags but playing a live dance set". Shikari Sound System played their debut set at The Reading and Leeds festivals and were joined by members of hardcore band Hacktivist as well as Danny Price who now regularly hosts SSS DJ sets. Shikari Sound System were announced for Slam Dunk Festival on 24 February 2016 and have done regular slots in the UK and Europe. In 2017, Rou Reynolds released a book named Dear Future Historians, a song-by-song lyrical analysis of the band's work including photos. By popular demand, the book was revisited and expanded in 2019 to include music released since its original publication, and received another strictly limited edition run. Members Rou Reynolds – lead vocals, programming, synthesizer, keyboards, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, trumpet, percussion (1999–present) Chris Batten – bass, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion (1999–present) Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1999–present) Rory Clewlow – lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards, synthesizer (2003–present) DiscographyStudio albums Take to the Skies (2007) Common Dreads (2009) A Flash Flood of Colour (2012) The Mindsweep (2015) The Spark (2017) Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020) Accolades \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2006\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2006: Best British Newcomer\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="7"\|2007\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2007: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Spirit of Independence\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|"Sorry You're Not a Winner"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Single \|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Take to the Skies\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2009\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2009: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2010\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2010: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6"\|2012\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Rou Reynolds\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Hero of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards: Hardest Working Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|2013\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2013: Best Fan Community\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="3"\|2015 \|\| style="text-align:center;"\|"Anaesthetist"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best Single\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|The Mindsweep\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2015: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2016\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2016: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2017\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Heavy Music Awards 2017: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2018\|\|style="text-align:center;"\|The Spark\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2018: Best Album\|\| \|}Miscellaneous''' Rock Sound's poll for 'who will make it in 2007'. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Best Live Band 2011. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Who Will Own 2012. NME's User's Poll: Best Act at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2012. References External links British post-hardcore musical groups Electronicore musical groups English alternative rock groups English experimental rock groups English electronic music groups 2003 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1999 Musical quartets Kerrang! Awards winners Hopeless Records artists Political music groups Musical groups from St Albans	true	[ "Follow Me is the second album of Dutch singer Do.\n\nIt did well in the Netherlands, debuting at #8 in the Mega Top 100 (album chart).\n\nAlbum information\nAfter her successful debut album Do she began working on her second album with her best friend and musical partner Glenn Corneille. They made a basis for the next album but Glenn Corneille died in a car disaster. However, Do needed to go on, so she started again where she left off.\n\nThe album contains 12 songs. Do co-wrote 3 songs; Love Me, Tune Into Me and When Everything is Gone. It features several different music genres, such as Pop, Jazz, Gospel and Country.\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n.\n\n2006 albums\nDo (singer) albums\nSony BMG albums", "Treddin' on Thin Ice is the debut album by UK grime artist Wiley released on XL Recordings. It was released on 26 April 2004. The album is seen as a critical success in grime music with an enduring and influential forward facing sound. However, commercially the album did not do as well, with one single (\"Wot Do U Call It\", a song addressing the debate over the categorization of grime) making the top 40 in the UK music charts.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2004 debut albums\nWiley (musician) albums\nXL Recordings albums" ]
[ "Enter Shikari", "The Mindsweep (2014-2017)", "what was the mindsweep?", "On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015.", "did the album do well?", "The album was anticipated by singles \"The Last Garrison\" and \"Anaesthetist\"." ]	C_84de9e5316c74f878c67146a49a89dbd_0	did they go on tour?	3	Did Enter Shikari go on tour?	Enter Shikari	In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On January 12, 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Enter Shikari (sometimes stylised as enter: shikari and most commonly as ΣΠΤΣR SΗΦΚ∆RΦ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and drummer Rob Rolfe. In 2003, guitarist Rory Clewlow joined the band to complete its current lineup, and it adopted its current name. In 2006, they performed to a growing fanbase at Download Festival as well as a sold-out concert at the London Astoria. Their debut studio album, Take to the Skies, was released in 2007 and reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart, and has since been certified gold in the UK. Their second, Common Dreads, was released in 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 16; while their third, A Flash Flood of Colour, was released in 2012 and debuted on the chart at number 4. Both have since been certified silver in the UK. The band spent a considerable amount of time supporting the latter release through the A Flash Flood of Colour World Tour, before beginning work on a fourth studio album, The Mindsweep, which was released in 2015. Their fifth studio album The Spark was released in 2017. Their sixth album Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible was released in April 2020. Enter Shikari have their own record label, Ambush Reality. However, they have also signed distribution deals with several major labels to help with worldwide distribution. Their eclectic musical style combines influences from rock music genres with those from various electronic music genres. History Beginnings (1999–2006) In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed, consisting of Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar, and Rob Rolfe on drums. They released an EP called Commit No Nuisance, which featured the tracks "Perfect Pygmalion", "Look Inside", "Torch Song", "Honesty Box" and "Fake". In 2003, with the addition of guitarist Rory Clewlow, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. The band was named after Shikari, a boat belonging to vocalist Rou Reynolds' uncle. "Shikari is a Hindi word for hunter." After the band's lineup and name change, Reynolds focused his musical efforts on vocals and electronics instead of guitar. During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs (Nodding Acquaintance, Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour and Sorry You're Not a Winner) that were available from their gigs and their website, featuring original versions of some songs that were eventually rerecorded for their debut album, Take to the Skies. They would frequently make appearances at their local youth club, The Pioneer Club, where they would play alongside other local bands. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005 (no such EP materialized, although recordings surfaced online). For this the first versions of "Return To Energiser" and "Labyrinth" were recorded. Early versions of "OK Time for Plan B" and "We Can Breathe in Space" were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. It was at this time that Kerrang! Radio's Alex Baker picked up on the band, and as he didn't have a physical release to play, he streamed "OK Time For Plan B" off the band's Myspace page, straight onto the airwaves. In August 2006 they released a video of the single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes Store. Their 1st physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on 30 October 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]). This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on the EA Sports video game titles NHL 08 and Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/Myspace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They also had interviews with popular music press such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. On 4 November 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness). They also made the NME'''s "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party). The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on 5 March 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band released a compilation album titled The Zone just after the debut album, this contained various demo tracks and previously released singles. Take to the Skies (2007–08) The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and on 25 March it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album. During the month of March 2007 it was announced they would be playing at Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On 30 March 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME. Enter Shikari had performed over 500 times by 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This was followed by three more North American tours. On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day. Common Dreads (2009–2010) It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen", from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009 with "All Eyes on the Saint" as its B side. The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track.Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at No. 16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single to be released from Common Dreads was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7-inch vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked", made of clips of a live show played at Norwich UEA, was also released. A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that "we’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum 'n' bass remixes so we'll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single." However it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed. The single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, as well as the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1 on 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010. Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick. On 18 and 19 December, Enter Shikari hosted two Christmas Party shows at The Forum in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Special guest supports included Rolo Tomassi, Young Guns, Dark Stares, Don Broco and The Qemists. The audio from the shows was released via the band's limited edition box-set Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3. A Flash Flood of Colour (2011–12) On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7-inch vinyl on 29 November 2010. In June 2011, the band signed to Hopeless Records in the US, and embarked on the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. In mid-2011, the band released another one-off single called "Quelle Surprise" before releasing the first single, "Sssnakepit" and "Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" in September and December, respectively, off their third album. The band released A Flash Flood of Colour on 16 January 2012, and played three album release shows in London, Kingston upon Thames, and Leeds. At the end of the first week of the album being released, the album reached number four in the U.K charts. Later that year, the band began their first tour of A Flash Flood of Colour in February by heading out to Tokyo, Japan for one show, before playing Soundwave Festival, including a couple of 'sideshows' on their off-days. The band continued their tour across the world, travelling to the United States, South Africa, Europe, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Pukkelpop, FM4 Frequency Festival, Sonisphere in Spain, T in the Park, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and many more, ranging from the end of May to the start of September. In Summer 2012's Kerrang! Awards, the band scooped 'Best Live Band' for the second time, along with Rou Reynolds winning 'Hero of the Year.' They were also nominated for best album, but lost out to Mastodon. In November 2012 the band announced the launch of their own beer "Sssnakepit", a 5% lager brewed in conjunction with Signature Brew, which was launched in Manchester and sold on the 'A Flash Flood of Christmas' tour at venues across the UK. The band were also nominated for Best British Band and Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards 2013, but lost out to Bring Me the Horizon and Black Veil Brides respectively. Rat Race EP (2013) In April 2013, the band released a non-album single named "The Paddington Frisk", later announcing that it was part of a then unnamed three track EP due for release later that year (Rat Race EP). On 5 June 2013, the band announced via their official Twitter that they were recording a video for the new single "Radiate", which was first played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show on 10 June. The song was his Single of the Week. 5 months later, "Rat Race" was released, the three tracks were then amalgamated into the Rat Race EP, along with a trance remix of "Radiate" created by Reynold's side project – Shikari Sound System. The band headed out on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland throughout April and May, purposefully playing in towns that don't usually get shows, as a thank you to those fans who usually have to travel to larger cities all the time to see bands. Support for the tour was Hacktivist. This tour was the first time the songs "The Paddington Frisk" was played, as well as "Juggernauts" b-side "All Eyes on the Saint" from 2009 The Mindsweep (2014–2016) In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On 12 January 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sounds compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. The Spark (2017–2019) On 1 August 2017, Enter Shikari announced their new album The Spark with its lead single "Live Outside". The album was released on 22 September. To promote the album, the band toured UK, Europe, Japan, and North America on their The Spark World Tour. On 15 February 2019, the band released a pair of limited edition live albums, Take to the Skies. Live in Moscow. May 2017 and Live at Alexandra Palace 2 both of which were recorded in 2017 on their Take to the Skies 10 Year Anniversary Tour and their The Spark World Tour. In 2018 the band embarked on an extensive tour of the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, entitled "Stop the Clocks", during which they performed a new song of the same name. The band released the song as a single on 12 August 2019 shortly before their performances at the 2019 Reading and Leeds Festivals where they played 5 different sets across the weekend. Following this, the band resumed their Stop the Clocks tour with a twelve-date American leg, which singer Rou Reynolds said would "bring the whole 'Spark-era' full circle." Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020–present) In an interview with Kerrang while the band was in Australia for Good Things Festival, they revealed their next album will be the "most definitive Shikari record to date" and will feature something from every album. On 10 February 2020, a new single called "The Dreamer's Hotel", stylized as { The Dreamer's Hotel }, premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. The same day, they announced that their new album would be called Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible and would release on 17 April 2020. An accompanying music video was released for The Dreamer's Hotel on 5 March 2020, almost a month after the initial release. The video features an unusual use of over-the-top rainbow effects, fitting with the rainbow motif of the album. "The King" was the album's second single, released on 8 March 2020. Frontman Rou described this track as a "lesson in patience and forgiveness" to Kerrang as they have worked on this single song for such a long time. "T.I.N.A." was the third single released on 22 March 2020. The title stands for "there is no alternative". Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible hit No. 2 on the UK album charts on 30 April 2020, 13 days after its release on 17 April. This was the band's fifth album to reach Top 10 and the third consecutive major album. The band will support the album release with a full UK tour. On 16 April 2021, they released Moratorium (Broadcasts from the Interruption) without advance notice. It includes songs from their past two albums that have been reworked, re-imagined, recorded live or as acoustic renditions. On 24 November 2021 through 10 February 2022, Enter Shikari headed out for a brief European tour. On 25 March 2022, they will pick up in Texas for a North American tour. Later on 16 July 2022, the band will release their film, Live At Vada, directed by Tom Pullen. Musical style, lyrical themes and influences Enter Shikari's musical style has been variously described as alternative rock, electronic rock, post-hardcore, electronicore (which they are considered to have pioneered), experimental rock, post-rock, and on their early releases, metalcore and synth-metal. It is recognisable for combining rock music (especially punk rock and hardcore punk) with elements of various electronic music genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, techno, electronica and trance. It features breakdowns, heavy metal and hardcore-influenced instrumentation, dub-inspired "wobbles", anthemic choruses, drum and bass tempos and an alternation between sung, screamed (or occasionally growled) and rapped vocals, with all members contributing to vocals. Enter Shikari's lyrics, written by frontman Rou Reynolds, are often politically charged. In a 2015 interview, Kerrang! Magazine wrote: "With Shikari a rare, political voice on the UK rock scene, Rou remains baffled by bands 'labelling themselves as punk that aren't speaking about anything of importance'. 'To us it's second nature,' he says. 'It's what this music is for. If you take out the social commentary, it's not punk, it's just noisy pop.'" At the same time, Reynolds "[doesn't] care if people don't read the lyrics" and only "appreciate Shikari as a noisy pop group". Although not all of the band's lyrics are political, "even when [Enter Shikari write] a love song, [Reynolds wants] to make sure [they] reclaim the love song from all the shit, vapid love songs on the charts." He also stated that the band's general message is that "if we base our lives around love and unity, then that's all that matters." Political issues that the band have written about in their lyrics include – climate change and the misuse of natural resources, Donald Trump's presidency of the United States, the use of nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear programme, the privatisation of the UK's National Health Service, and capitalism. Enter Shikari's lyrics have also centred around more personal themes throughout their career, such as lead singer Rou Reynolds' anxiety, depression, mental illness, self-pity and the loss of a loved one or idolised celebrity figure. Their album The Spark in particular delves more into personal issues within the band, with Reynolds stating in an interview with The Independent, regarding lyrical themes: "What I was trying to do with this album in marrying the personal and the political is to ensure that human vulnerability is laid bare, and to not be afraid to speak about emotions." He elaborates by stating that "I don’t think I could have done it [writing more personal lyrics] before this record. So much happened over those two years [since the release of their previous album], globally and in my personal life, so before. I was kind of comfortable. I have a very finely attuned cringe muscle, I don’t like writing about things that have been written about a thousand times. Some of it is maybe even a self-confidence thing, feeling as though I don’t have much to offer in terms of art that helps other people. But seeing as 2015 was the year of hell for me, it wasn’t just that I wanted to write a more personal record, I had to. There was no way of not doing it". In an interview following the release of A Flash Flood of Colour, guitarist Rory Clewlow stated that the band's influences are numerous, but include Refused, the Prodigy, At the Drive-In, Sick of It All, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, Igor Stravinsky and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and that "most of [their] sound was originally developed through going to see local acts in and around [their] home town." Rou Reynolds has cited British pop music from the 20th century as being a major influence on his songwriting, particularly on their album The Spark, with The Beatles, The Damned, Joy Division and New Order being key influences on him. Ambush Reality Ambush Reality is an independent record label owned by Enter Shikari. Although originally it was exclusively for the release of Enter Shikari's albums and songs, on 21 July 2014 the band announced via Facebook and Twitter they were releasing a song by Nottingham hardcore band Baby Godzilla (now known as Heck). Formed in July 2006, it is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they had to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies came out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS Entertainment Group. As of 21 June 2011, Enter Shikari's releases in North America are via independent record label Hopeless Records. Side projects Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum and bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs. His most recent EP, released for ActionAid, features samples from ActionAid's project work in Ghana. Rolfe also DJs under the moniker "Sgt. Rolfy", regularly playing slots at the band's aftershow parties. He plays a range of sounds, including trance, drum & bass, dubstep and even classical and parody tunes too. Clewlow recently released his first remix, simply as "Rory C", for Don Broco's track "Priorities", from their new record. Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company, Step Up Clothing. On 25 April 2013 the band announced a side project called Shikari Sound System, an alter-ego of the group. The band announced it on their Facebook page straight after they had been announced to play at Reading and Leeds Festival during the summer. Frontman Rou assured fans on his Twitter page that it would be "The same 4 scallywags but playing a live dance set". Shikari Sound System played their debut set at The Reading and Leeds festivals and were joined by members of hardcore band Hacktivist as well as Danny Price who now regularly hosts SSS DJ sets. Shikari Sound System were announced for Slam Dunk Festival on 24 February 2016 and have done regular slots in the UK and Europe. In 2017, Rou Reynolds released a book named Dear Future Historians, a song-by-song lyrical analysis of the band's work including photos. By popular demand, the book was revisited and expanded in 2019 to include music released since its original publication, and received another strictly limited edition run. Members Rou Reynolds – lead vocals, programming, synthesizer, keyboards, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, trumpet, percussion (1999–present) Chris Batten – bass, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion (1999–present) Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1999–present) Rory Clewlow – lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards, synthesizer (2003–present) DiscographyStudio albums Take to the Skies (2007) Common Dreads (2009) A Flash Flood of Colour (2012) The Mindsweep (2015) The Spark (2017) Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020) Accolades \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2006\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2006: Best British Newcomer\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="7"\|2007\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2007: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Spirit of Independence\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|"Sorry You're Not a Winner"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Single \|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Take to the Skies\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2009\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2009: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2010\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2010: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6"\|2012\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Rou Reynolds\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Hero of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards: Hardest Working Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|2013\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2013: Best Fan Community\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="3"\|2015 \|\| style="text-align:center;"\|"Anaesthetist"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best Single\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|The Mindsweep\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2015: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2016\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2016: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2017\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Heavy Music Awards 2017: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2018\|\|style="text-align:center;"\|The Spark\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2018: Best Album\|\| \|}Miscellaneous''' Rock Sound's poll for 'who will make it in 2007'. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Best Live Band 2011. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Who Will Own 2012. NME's User's Poll: Best Act at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2012. References External links British post-hardcore musical groups Electronicore musical groups English alternative rock groups English experimental rock groups English electronic music groups 2003 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1999 Musical quartets Kerrang! Awards winners Hopeless Records artists Political music groups Musical groups from St Albans	false	[ "Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people", "The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England" ]
[ "Enter Shikari", "The Mindsweep (2014-2017)", "what was the mindsweep?", "On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015.", "did the album do well?", "The album was anticipated by singles \"The Last Garrison\" and \"Anaesthetist\".", "did they go on tour?", "I don't know." ]	C_84de9e5316c74f878c67146a49a89dbd_0	what else happened between 2014 and 2017?	4	What else happened with Enter Shikari besides releasing The Mindsweep album, between 2014 and 2017?	Enter Shikari	In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On January 12, 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. CANNOTANSWER	In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes,	Enter Shikari (sometimes stylised as enter: shikari and most commonly as ΣΠΤΣR SΗΦΚ∆RΦ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and drummer Rob Rolfe. In 2003, guitarist Rory Clewlow joined the band to complete its current lineup, and it adopted its current name. In 2006, they performed to a growing fanbase at Download Festival as well as a sold-out concert at the London Astoria. Their debut studio album, Take to the Skies, was released in 2007 and reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart, and has since been certified gold in the UK. Their second, Common Dreads, was released in 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 16; while their third, A Flash Flood of Colour, was released in 2012 and debuted on the chart at number 4. Both have since been certified silver in the UK. The band spent a considerable amount of time supporting the latter release through the A Flash Flood of Colour World Tour, before beginning work on a fourth studio album, The Mindsweep, which was released in 2015. Their fifth studio album The Spark was released in 2017. Their sixth album Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible was released in April 2020. Enter Shikari have their own record label, Ambush Reality. However, they have also signed distribution deals with several major labels to help with worldwide distribution. Their eclectic musical style combines influences from rock music genres with those from various electronic music genres. History Beginnings (1999–2006) In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed, consisting of Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar, and Rob Rolfe on drums. They released an EP called Commit No Nuisance, which featured the tracks "Perfect Pygmalion", "Look Inside", "Torch Song", "Honesty Box" and "Fake". In 2003, with the addition of guitarist Rory Clewlow, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. The band was named after Shikari, a boat belonging to vocalist Rou Reynolds' uncle. "Shikari is a Hindi word for hunter." After the band's lineup and name change, Reynolds focused his musical efforts on vocals and electronics instead of guitar. During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs (Nodding Acquaintance, Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour and Sorry You're Not a Winner) that were available from their gigs and their website, featuring original versions of some songs that were eventually rerecorded for their debut album, Take to the Skies. They would frequently make appearances at their local youth club, The Pioneer Club, where they would play alongside other local bands. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005 (no such EP materialized, although recordings surfaced online). For this the first versions of "Return To Energiser" and "Labyrinth" were recorded. Early versions of "OK Time for Plan B" and "We Can Breathe in Space" were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. It was at this time that Kerrang! Radio's Alex Baker picked up on the band, and as he didn't have a physical release to play, he streamed "OK Time For Plan B" off the band's Myspace page, straight onto the airwaves. In August 2006 they released a video of the single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes Store. Their 1st physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on 30 October 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]). This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on the EA Sports video game titles NHL 08 and Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/Myspace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They also had interviews with popular music press such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. On 4 November 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness). They also made the NME'''s "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party). The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on 5 March 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band released a compilation album titled The Zone just after the debut album, this contained various demo tracks and previously released singles. Take to the Skies (2007–08) The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and on 25 March it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album. During the month of March 2007 it was announced they would be playing at Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On 30 March 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME. Enter Shikari had performed over 500 times by 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This was followed by three more North American tours. On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day. Common Dreads (2009–2010) It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen", from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009 with "All Eyes on the Saint" as its B side. The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track.Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at No. 16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single to be released from Common Dreads was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7-inch vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked", made of clips of a live show played at Norwich UEA, was also released. A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that "we’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum 'n' bass remixes so we'll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single." However it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed. The single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, as well as the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1 on 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010. Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick. On 18 and 19 December, Enter Shikari hosted two Christmas Party shows at The Forum in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Special guest supports included Rolo Tomassi, Young Guns, Dark Stares, Don Broco and The Qemists. The audio from the shows was released via the band's limited edition box-set Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3. A Flash Flood of Colour (2011–12) On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7-inch vinyl on 29 November 2010. In June 2011, the band signed to Hopeless Records in the US, and embarked on the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. In mid-2011, the band released another one-off single called "Quelle Surprise" before releasing the first single, "Sssnakepit" and "Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" in September and December, respectively, off their third album. The band released A Flash Flood of Colour on 16 January 2012, and played three album release shows in London, Kingston upon Thames, and Leeds. At the end of the first week of the album being released, the album reached number four in the U.K charts. Later that year, the band began their first tour of A Flash Flood of Colour in February by heading out to Tokyo, Japan for one show, before playing Soundwave Festival, including a couple of 'sideshows' on their off-days. The band continued their tour across the world, travelling to the United States, South Africa, Europe, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Pukkelpop, FM4 Frequency Festival, Sonisphere in Spain, T in the Park, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and many more, ranging from the end of May to the start of September. In Summer 2012's Kerrang! Awards, the band scooped 'Best Live Band' for the second time, along with Rou Reynolds winning 'Hero of the Year.' They were also nominated for best album, but lost out to Mastodon. In November 2012 the band announced the launch of their own beer "Sssnakepit", a 5% lager brewed in conjunction with Signature Brew, which was launched in Manchester and sold on the 'A Flash Flood of Christmas' tour at venues across the UK. The band were also nominated for Best British Band and Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards 2013, but lost out to Bring Me the Horizon and Black Veil Brides respectively. Rat Race EP (2013) In April 2013, the band released a non-album single named "The Paddington Frisk", later announcing that it was part of a then unnamed three track EP due for release later that year (Rat Race EP). On 5 June 2013, the band announced via their official Twitter that they were recording a video for the new single "Radiate", which was first played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show on 10 June. The song was his Single of the Week. 5 months later, "Rat Race" was released, the three tracks were then amalgamated into the Rat Race EP, along with a trance remix of "Radiate" created by Reynold's side project – Shikari Sound System. The band headed out on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland throughout April and May, purposefully playing in towns that don't usually get shows, as a thank you to those fans who usually have to travel to larger cities all the time to see bands. Support for the tour was Hacktivist. This tour was the first time the songs "The Paddington Frisk" was played, as well as "Juggernauts" b-side "All Eyes on the Saint" from 2009 The Mindsweep (2014–2016) In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On 12 January 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sounds compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. The Spark (2017–2019) On 1 August 2017, Enter Shikari announced their new album The Spark with its lead single "Live Outside". The album was released on 22 September. To promote the album, the band toured UK, Europe, Japan, and North America on their The Spark World Tour. On 15 February 2019, the band released a pair of limited edition live albums, Take to the Skies. Live in Moscow. May 2017 and Live at Alexandra Palace 2 both of which were recorded in 2017 on their Take to the Skies 10 Year Anniversary Tour and their The Spark World Tour. In 2018 the band embarked on an extensive tour of the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, entitled "Stop the Clocks", during which they performed a new song of the same name. The band released the song as a single on 12 August 2019 shortly before their performances at the 2019 Reading and Leeds Festivals where they played 5 different sets across the weekend. Following this, the band resumed their Stop the Clocks tour with a twelve-date American leg, which singer Rou Reynolds said would "bring the whole 'Spark-era' full circle." Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020–present) In an interview with Kerrang while the band was in Australia for Good Things Festival, they revealed their next album will be the "most definitive Shikari record to date" and will feature something from every album. On 10 February 2020, a new single called "The Dreamer's Hotel", stylized as { The Dreamer's Hotel }, premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. The same day, they announced that their new album would be called Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible and would release on 17 April 2020. An accompanying music video was released for The Dreamer's Hotel on 5 March 2020, almost a month after the initial release. The video features an unusual use of over-the-top rainbow effects, fitting with the rainbow motif of the album. "The King" was the album's second single, released on 8 March 2020. Frontman Rou described this track as a "lesson in patience and forgiveness" to Kerrang as they have worked on this single song for such a long time. "T.I.N.A." was the third single released on 22 March 2020. The title stands for "there is no alternative". Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible hit No. 2 on the UK album charts on 30 April 2020, 13 days after its release on 17 April. This was the band's fifth album to reach Top 10 and the third consecutive major album. The band will support the album release with a full UK tour. On 16 April 2021, they released Moratorium (Broadcasts from the Interruption) without advance notice. It includes songs from their past two albums that have been reworked, re-imagined, recorded live or as acoustic renditions. On 24 November 2021 through 10 February 2022, Enter Shikari headed out for a brief European tour. On 25 March 2022, they will pick up in Texas for a North American tour. Later on 16 July 2022, the band will release their film, Live At Vada, directed by Tom Pullen. Musical style, lyrical themes and influences Enter Shikari's musical style has been variously described as alternative rock, electronic rock, post-hardcore, electronicore (which they are considered to have pioneered), experimental rock, post-rock, and on their early releases, metalcore and synth-metal. It is recognisable for combining rock music (especially punk rock and hardcore punk) with elements of various electronic music genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, techno, electronica and trance. It features breakdowns, heavy metal and hardcore-influenced instrumentation, dub-inspired "wobbles", anthemic choruses, drum and bass tempos and an alternation between sung, screamed (or occasionally growled) and rapped vocals, with all members contributing to vocals. Enter Shikari's lyrics, written by frontman Rou Reynolds, are often politically charged. In a 2015 interview, Kerrang! Magazine wrote: "With Shikari a rare, political voice on the UK rock scene, Rou remains baffled by bands 'labelling themselves as punk that aren't speaking about anything of importance'. 'To us it's second nature,' he says. 'It's what this music is for. If you take out the social commentary, it's not punk, it's just noisy pop.'" At the same time, Reynolds "[doesn't] care if people don't read the lyrics" and only "appreciate Shikari as a noisy pop group". Although not all of the band's lyrics are political, "even when [Enter Shikari write] a love song, [Reynolds wants] to make sure [they] reclaim the love song from all the shit, vapid love songs on the charts." He also stated that the band's general message is that "if we base our lives around love and unity, then that's all that matters." Political issues that the band have written about in their lyrics include – climate change and the misuse of natural resources, Donald Trump's presidency of the United States, the use of nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear programme, the privatisation of the UK's National Health Service, and capitalism. Enter Shikari's lyrics have also centred around more personal themes throughout their career, such as lead singer Rou Reynolds' anxiety, depression, mental illness, self-pity and the loss of a loved one or idolised celebrity figure. Their album The Spark in particular delves more into personal issues within the band, with Reynolds stating in an interview with The Independent, regarding lyrical themes: "What I was trying to do with this album in marrying the personal and the political is to ensure that human vulnerability is laid bare, and to not be afraid to speak about emotions." He elaborates by stating that "I don’t think I could have done it [writing more personal lyrics] before this record. So much happened over those two years [since the release of their previous album], globally and in my personal life, so before. I was kind of comfortable. I have a very finely attuned cringe muscle, I don’t like writing about things that have been written about a thousand times. Some of it is maybe even a self-confidence thing, feeling as though I don’t have much to offer in terms of art that helps other people. But seeing as 2015 was the year of hell for me, it wasn’t just that I wanted to write a more personal record, I had to. There was no way of not doing it". In an interview following the release of A Flash Flood of Colour, guitarist Rory Clewlow stated that the band's influences are numerous, but include Refused, the Prodigy, At the Drive-In, Sick of It All, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, Igor Stravinsky and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and that "most of [their] sound was originally developed through going to see local acts in and around [their] home town." Rou Reynolds has cited British pop music from the 20th century as being a major influence on his songwriting, particularly on their album The Spark, with The Beatles, The Damned, Joy Division and New Order being key influences on him. Ambush Reality Ambush Reality is an independent record label owned by Enter Shikari. Although originally it was exclusively for the release of Enter Shikari's albums and songs, on 21 July 2014 the band announced via Facebook and Twitter they were releasing a song by Nottingham hardcore band Baby Godzilla (now known as Heck). Formed in July 2006, it is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they had to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies came out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS Entertainment Group. As of 21 June 2011, Enter Shikari's releases in North America are via independent record label Hopeless Records. Side projects Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum and bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs. His most recent EP, released for ActionAid, features samples from ActionAid's project work in Ghana. Rolfe also DJs under the moniker "Sgt. Rolfy", regularly playing slots at the band's aftershow parties. He plays a range of sounds, including trance, drum & bass, dubstep and even classical and parody tunes too. Clewlow recently released his first remix, simply as "Rory C", for Don Broco's track "Priorities", from their new record. Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company, Step Up Clothing. On 25 April 2013 the band announced a side project called Shikari Sound System, an alter-ego of the group. The band announced it on their Facebook page straight after they had been announced to play at Reading and Leeds Festival during the summer. Frontman Rou assured fans on his Twitter page that it would be "The same 4 scallywags but playing a live dance set". Shikari Sound System played their debut set at The Reading and Leeds festivals and were joined by members of hardcore band Hacktivist as well as Danny Price who now regularly hosts SSS DJ sets. Shikari Sound System were announced for Slam Dunk Festival on 24 February 2016 and have done regular slots in the UK and Europe. In 2017, Rou Reynolds released a book named Dear Future Historians, a song-by-song lyrical analysis of the band's work including photos. By popular demand, the book was revisited and expanded in 2019 to include music released since its original publication, and received another strictly limited edition run. Members Rou Reynolds – lead vocals, programming, synthesizer, keyboards, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, trumpet, percussion (1999–present) Chris Batten – bass, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion (1999–present) Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1999–present) Rory Clewlow – lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards, synthesizer (2003–present) DiscographyStudio albums Take to the Skies (2007) Common Dreads (2009) A Flash Flood of Colour (2012) The Mindsweep (2015) The Spark (2017) Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020) Accolades \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2006\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2006: Best British Newcomer\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="7"\|2007\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2007: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Spirit of Independence\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|"Sorry You're Not a Winner"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Single \|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Take to the Skies\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2009\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2009: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2010\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2010: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6"\|2012\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Rou Reynolds\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Hero of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards: Hardest Working Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|2013\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2013: Best Fan Community\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="3"\|2015 \|\| style="text-align:center;"\|"Anaesthetist"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best Single\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|The Mindsweep\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2015: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2016\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2016: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2017\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Heavy Music Awards 2017: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2018\|\|style="text-align:center;"\|The Spark\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2018: Best Album\|\| \|}Miscellaneous''' Rock Sound's poll for 'who will make it in 2007'. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Best Live Band 2011. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Who Will Own 2012. NME's User's Poll: Best Act at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2012. References External links British post-hardcore musical groups Electronicore musical groups English alternative rock groups English experimental rock groups English electronic music groups 2003 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1999 Musical quartets Kerrang! Awards winners Hopeless Records artists Political music groups Musical groups from St Albans	false	[ "Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books", "Kathryn Cave (born 1948 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England) is a British children's book author. She was awarded the very first international UNESCO prize for Children's and Young People's Literature in the Service of Tolerance for Something Else. The book was later made into a TV comic series by TV Loonland. A theatre company, Tall Stories, has adapted Something Else as a children's production, and they ran a UK tour in Autumn 2009.\n\nShe has three children, Eleanor, Joseph, and Alice, and six grandchildren. Kathryn has previously worked as an editor for Penguin and Basil Blackwell, and she currently works under contract for Frances Lincoln, an independent publishing house in North London.\n\nShe lives in Hampstead, North London.\n\nBooks\n Dragonrise (1984)\n Just My Luck (1987)\n Poor Little Mary (1989)\nHenry Hobbs, Alien (1990)\n Running Battles (1992)\nAndrew Takes the Plunge (1994)\n Best Friends for Ever (1994)\nJumble (1995)\nThe Emperor's Gruckle Hound (1996)\nWilliam and the Wolves (1999)\nSeptimus Similon, Practising Wizard (2000)\nHenry Hobbs, Space Voyager (2001)\nHenry Hobbs and the Lost Planet (2002)\n\nPicture books\nOut for the Count (1991) illustrated by Chris Riddell\nSomething Else (1994) illustrated by Chris Riddell\n Horatio Happened (1998) illustrated by Chris Riddell\n W is for World (1998) illustrated by Oxfam\n Henry's Song (2000) illustrated by Sue Hendra\n The Boy Who Became an Eagle (2000) illustrated by Nick Maland\n The Brave Little Grork (2002) illustrated by Nick Maland\n One Child, One Seed (2002) illustrated by Oxfam\n You've Got Dragons (2003) illustrated by Nick Maland\n That's What Friends Do (2004) illustrated by Nick Maland\n Friends (2005) illustrated by Nick Maland\n\nAwards\n 1997 Die Kinder- und Jugendbuchliste (RB/SR) in Germany for Something Else\n 1997 UNESCO prize for Children's and Young People's Literature in the Service of Tolerance for Something Else\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nBritish children's writers\n1948 births\nPeople from Aldershot" ]
[ "Enter Shikari", "The Mindsweep (2014-2017)", "what was the mindsweep?", "On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015.", "did the album do well?", "The album was anticipated by singles \"The Last Garrison\" and \"Anaesthetist\".", "did they go on tour?", "I don't know.", "what else happened between 2014 and 2017?", "In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes," ]	C_84de9e5316c74f878c67146a49a89dbd_0	Did anything else happen?	5	Did anything else happen with Enter Shikari besides covering System of a Down's Chop Suey! between 2014 to 2017?	Enter Shikari	In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On January 12, 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. CANNOTANSWER	On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists.	Enter Shikari (sometimes stylised as enter: shikari and most commonly as ΣΠΤΣR SΗΦΚ∆RΦ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and drummer Rob Rolfe. In 2003, guitarist Rory Clewlow joined the band to complete its current lineup, and it adopted its current name. In 2006, they performed to a growing fanbase at Download Festival as well as a sold-out concert at the London Astoria. Their debut studio album, Take to the Skies, was released in 2007 and reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart, and has since been certified gold in the UK. Their second, Common Dreads, was released in 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 16; while their third, A Flash Flood of Colour, was released in 2012 and debuted on the chart at number 4. Both have since been certified silver in the UK. The band spent a considerable amount of time supporting the latter release through the A Flash Flood of Colour World Tour, before beginning work on a fourth studio album, The Mindsweep, which was released in 2015. Their fifth studio album The Spark was released in 2017. Their sixth album Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible was released in April 2020. Enter Shikari have their own record label, Ambush Reality. However, they have also signed distribution deals with several major labels to help with worldwide distribution. Their eclectic musical style combines influences from rock music genres with those from various electronic music genres. History Beginnings (1999–2006) In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed, consisting of Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar, and Rob Rolfe on drums. They released an EP called Commit No Nuisance, which featured the tracks "Perfect Pygmalion", "Look Inside", "Torch Song", "Honesty Box" and "Fake". In 2003, with the addition of guitarist Rory Clewlow, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. The band was named after Shikari, a boat belonging to vocalist Rou Reynolds' uncle. "Shikari is a Hindi word for hunter." After the band's lineup and name change, Reynolds focused his musical efforts on vocals and electronics instead of guitar. During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs (Nodding Acquaintance, Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour and Sorry You're Not a Winner) that were available from their gigs and their website, featuring original versions of some songs that were eventually rerecorded for their debut album, Take to the Skies. They would frequently make appearances at their local youth club, The Pioneer Club, where they would play alongside other local bands. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005 (no such EP materialized, although recordings surfaced online). For this the first versions of "Return To Energiser" and "Labyrinth" were recorded. Early versions of "OK Time for Plan B" and "We Can Breathe in Space" were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. It was at this time that Kerrang! Radio's Alex Baker picked up on the band, and as he didn't have a physical release to play, he streamed "OK Time For Plan B" off the band's Myspace page, straight onto the airwaves. In August 2006 they released a video of the single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes Store. Their 1st physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on 30 October 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]). This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on the EA Sports video game titles NHL 08 and Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/Myspace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They also had interviews with popular music press such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. On 4 November 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness). They also made the NME'''s "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party). The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on 5 March 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band released a compilation album titled The Zone just after the debut album, this contained various demo tracks and previously released singles. Take to the Skies (2007–08) The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and on 25 March it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album. During the month of March 2007 it was announced they would be playing at Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On 30 March 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME. Enter Shikari had performed over 500 times by 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This was followed by three more North American tours. On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day. Common Dreads (2009–2010) It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen", from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009 with "All Eyes on the Saint" as its B side. The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track.Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at No. 16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single to be released from Common Dreads was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7-inch vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked", made of clips of a live show played at Norwich UEA, was also released. A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that "we’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum 'n' bass remixes so we'll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single." However it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed. The single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, as well as the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1 on 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010. Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick. On 18 and 19 December, Enter Shikari hosted two Christmas Party shows at The Forum in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Special guest supports included Rolo Tomassi, Young Guns, Dark Stares, Don Broco and The Qemists. The audio from the shows was released via the band's limited edition box-set Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3. A Flash Flood of Colour (2011–12) On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7-inch vinyl on 29 November 2010. In June 2011, the band signed to Hopeless Records in the US, and embarked on the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. In mid-2011, the band released another one-off single called "Quelle Surprise" before releasing the first single, "Sssnakepit" and "Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" in September and December, respectively, off their third album. The band released A Flash Flood of Colour on 16 January 2012, and played three album release shows in London, Kingston upon Thames, and Leeds. At the end of the first week of the album being released, the album reached number four in the U.K charts. Later that year, the band began their first tour of A Flash Flood of Colour in February by heading out to Tokyo, Japan for one show, before playing Soundwave Festival, including a couple of 'sideshows' on their off-days. The band continued their tour across the world, travelling to the United States, South Africa, Europe, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Pukkelpop, FM4 Frequency Festival, Sonisphere in Spain, T in the Park, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and many more, ranging from the end of May to the start of September. In Summer 2012's Kerrang! Awards, the band scooped 'Best Live Band' for the second time, along with Rou Reynolds winning 'Hero of the Year.' They were also nominated for best album, but lost out to Mastodon. In November 2012 the band announced the launch of their own beer "Sssnakepit", a 5% lager brewed in conjunction with Signature Brew, which was launched in Manchester and sold on the 'A Flash Flood of Christmas' tour at venues across the UK. The band were also nominated for Best British Band and Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards 2013, but lost out to Bring Me the Horizon and Black Veil Brides respectively. Rat Race EP (2013) In April 2013, the band released a non-album single named "The Paddington Frisk", later announcing that it was part of a then unnamed three track EP due for release later that year (Rat Race EP). On 5 June 2013, the band announced via their official Twitter that they were recording a video for the new single "Radiate", which was first played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show on 10 June. The song was his Single of the Week. 5 months later, "Rat Race" was released, the three tracks were then amalgamated into the Rat Race EP, along with a trance remix of "Radiate" created by Reynold's side project – Shikari Sound System. The band headed out on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland throughout April and May, purposefully playing in towns that don't usually get shows, as a thank you to those fans who usually have to travel to larger cities all the time to see bands. Support for the tour was Hacktivist. This tour was the first time the songs "The Paddington Frisk" was played, as well as "Juggernauts" b-side "All Eyes on the Saint" from 2009 The Mindsweep (2014–2016) In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On 12 January 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sounds compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. The Spark (2017–2019) On 1 August 2017, Enter Shikari announced their new album The Spark with its lead single "Live Outside". The album was released on 22 September. To promote the album, the band toured UK, Europe, Japan, and North America on their The Spark World Tour. On 15 February 2019, the band released a pair of limited edition live albums, Take to the Skies. Live in Moscow. May 2017 and Live at Alexandra Palace 2 both of which were recorded in 2017 on their Take to the Skies 10 Year Anniversary Tour and their The Spark World Tour. In 2018 the band embarked on an extensive tour of the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, entitled "Stop the Clocks", during which they performed a new song of the same name. The band released the song as a single on 12 August 2019 shortly before their performances at the 2019 Reading and Leeds Festivals where they played 5 different sets across the weekend. Following this, the band resumed their Stop the Clocks tour with a twelve-date American leg, which singer Rou Reynolds said would "bring the whole 'Spark-era' full circle." Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020–present) In an interview with Kerrang while the band was in Australia for Good Things Festival, they revealed their next album will be the "most definitive Shikari record to date" and will feature something from every album. On 10 February 2020, a new single called "The Dreamer's Hotel", stylized as { The Dreamer's Hotel }, premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. The same day, they announced that their new album would be called Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible and would release on 17 April 2020. An accompanying music video was released for The Dreamer's Hotel on 5 March 2020, almost a month after the initial release. The video features an unusual use of over-the-top rainbow effects, fitting with the rainbow motif of the album. "The King" was the album's second single, released on 8 March 2020. Frontman Rou described this track as a "lesson in patience and forgiveness" to Kerrang as they have worked on this single song for such a long time. "T.I.N.A." was the third single released on 22 March 2020. The title stands for "there is no alternative". Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible hit No. 2 on the UK album charts on 30 April 2020, 13 days after its release on 17 April. This was the band's fifth album to reach Top 10 and the third consecutive major album. The band will support the album release with a full UK tour. On 16 April 2021, they released Moratorium (Broadcasts from the Interruption) without advance notice. It includes songs from their past two albums that have been reworked, re-imagined, recorded live or as acoustic renditions. On 24 November 2021 through 10 February 2022, Enter Shikari headed out for a brief European tour. On 25 March 2022, they will pick up in Texas for a North American tour. Later on 16 July 2022, the band will release their film, Live At Vada, directed by Tom Pullen. Musical style, lyrical themes and influences Enter Shikari's musical style has been variously described as alternative rock, electronic rock, post-hardcore, electronicore (which they are considered to have pioneered), experimental rock, post-rock, and on their early releases, metalcore and synth-metal. It is recognisable for combining rock music (especially punk rock and hardcore punk) with elements of various electronic music genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, techno, electronica and trance. It features breakdowns, heavy metal and hardcore-influenced instrumentation, dub-inspired "wobbles", anthemic choruses, drum and bass tempos and an alternation between sung, screamed (or occasionally growled) and rapped vocals, with all members contributing to vocals. Enter Shikari's lyrics, written by frontman Rou Reynolds, are often politically charged. In a 2015 interview, Kerrang! Magazine wrote: "With Shikari a rare, political voice on the UK rock scene, Rou remains baffled by bands 'labelling themselves as punk that aren't speaking about anything of importance'. 'To us it's second nature,' he says. 'It's what this music is for. If you take out the social commentary, it's not punk, it's just noisy pop.'" At the same time, Reynolds "[doesn't] care if people don't read the lyrics" and only "appreciate Shikari as a noisy pop group". Although not all of the band's lyrics are political, "even when [Enter Shikari write] a love song, [Reynolds wants] to make sure [they] reclaim the love song from all the shit, vapid love songs on the charts." He also stated that the band's general message is that "if we base our lives around love and unity, then that's all that matters." Political issues that the band have written about in their lyrics include – climate change and the misuse of natural resources, Donald Trump's presidency of the United States, the use of nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear programme, the privatisation of the UK's National Health Service, and capitalism. Enter Shikari's lyrics have also centred around more personal themes throughout their career, such as lead singer Rou Reynolds' anxiety, depression, mental illness, self-pity and the loss of a loved one or idolised celebrity figure. Their album The Spark in particular delves more into personal issues within the band, with Reynolds stating in an interview with The Independent, regarding lyrical themes: "What I was trying to do with this album in marrying the personal and the political is to ensure that human vulnerability is laid bare, and to not be afraid to speak about emotions." He elaborates by stating that "I don’t think I could have done it [writing more personal lyrics] before this record. So much happened over those two years [since the release of their previous album], globally and in my personal life, so before. I was kind of comfortable. I have a very finely attuned cringe muscle, I don’t like writing about things that have been written about a thousand times. Some of it is maybe even a self-confidence thing, feeling as though I don’t have much to offer in terms of art that helps other people. But seeing as 2015 was the year of hell for me, it wasn’t just that I wanted to write a more personal record, I had to. There was no way of not doing it". In an interview following the release of A Flash Flood of Colour, guitarist Rory Clewlow stated that the band's influences are numerous, but include Refused, the Prodigy, At the Drive-In, Sick of It All, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, Igor Stravinsky and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and that "most of [their] sound was originally developed through going to see local acts in and around [their] home town." Rou Reynolds has cited British pop music from the 20th century as being a major influence on his songwriting, particularly on their album The Spark, with The Beatles, The Damned, Joy Division and New Order being key influences on him. Ambush Reality Ambush Reality is an independent record label owned by Enter Shikari. Although originally it was exclusively for the release of Enter Shikari's albums and songs, on 21 July 2014 the band announced via Facebook and Twitter they were releasing a song by Nottingham hardcore band Baby Godzilla (now known as Heck). Formed in July 2006, it is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they had to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies came out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS Entertainment Group. As of 21 June 2011, Enter Shikari's releases in North America are via independent record label Hopeless Records. Side projects Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum and bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs. His most recent EP, released for ActionAid, features samples from ActionAid's project work in Ghana. Rolfe also DJs under the moniker "Sgt. Rolfy", regularly playing slots at the band's aftershow parties. He plays a range of sounds, including trance, drum & bass, dubstep and even classical and parody tunes too. Clewlow recently released his first remix, simply as "Rory C", for Don Broco's track "Priorities", from their new record. Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company, Step Up Clothing. On 25 April 2013 the band announced a side project called Shikari Sound System, an alter-ego of the group. The band announced it on their Facebook page straight after they had been announced to play at Reading and Leeds Festival during the summer. Frontman Rou assured fans on his Twitter page that it would be "The same 4 scallywags but playing a live dance set". Shikari Sound System played their debut set at The Reading and Leeds festivals and were joined by members of hardcore band Hacktivist as well as Danny Price who now regularly hosts SSS DJ sets. Shikari Sound System were announced for Slam Dunk Festival on 24 February 2016 and have done regular slots in the UK and Europe. In 2017, Rou Reynolds released a book named Dear Future Historians, a song-by-song lyrical analysis of the band's work including photos. By popular demand, the book was revisited and expanded in 2019 to include music released since its original publication, and received another strictly limited edition run. Members Rou Reynolds – lead vocals, programming, synthesizer, keyboards, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, trumpet, percussion (1999–present) Chris Batten – bass, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion (1999–present) Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1999–present) Rory Clewlow – lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards, synthesizer (2003–present) DiscographyStudio albums Take to the Skies (2007) Common Dreads (2009) A Flash Flood of Colour (2012) The Mindsweep (2015) The Spark (2017) Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020) Accolades \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2006\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2006: Best British Newcomer\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="7"\|2007\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2007: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Spirit of Independence\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|"Sorry You're Not a Winner"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Single \|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Take to the Skies\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2009\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2009: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2010\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2010: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6"\|2012\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Rou Reynolds\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Hero of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards: Hardest Working Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|2013\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2013: Best Fan Community\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="3"\|2015 \|\| style="text-align:center;"\|"Anaesthetist"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best Single\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|The Mindsweep\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2015: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2016\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2016: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2017\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Heavy Music Awards 2017: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2018\|\|style="text-align:center;"\|The Spark\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2018: Best Album\|\| \|}Miscellaneous''' Rock Sound's poll for 'who will make it in 2007'. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Best Live Band 2011. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Who Will Own 2012. NME's User's Poll: Best Act at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2012. References External links British post-hardcore musical groups Electronicore musical groups English alternative rock groups English experimental rock groups English electronic music groups 2003 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1999 Musical quartets Kerrang! Awards winners Hopeless Records artists Political music groups Musical groups from St Albans	true	[ "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", "Tunnel vision is a term used when a shooter is focused on a target, and thus misses what goes on around that target. Therefore an innocent bystander may pass in front or behind of the target and be shot accidentally. This is easily understandable if the bystander is not visible in the telescopic sight (see Tunnel vision#Optical instruments), but can also happen without one. In this case, the mental concentration of the shooter is so focused on the target, that they fail to notice anything else.\n\nMarksmanship\nShooting sports" ]
[ "Enter Shikari", "The Mindsweep (2014-2017)", "what was the mindsweep?", "On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015.", "did the album do well?", "The album was anticipated by singles \"The Last Garrison\" and \"Anaesthetist\".", "did they go on tour?", "I don't know.", "what else happened between 2014 and 2017?", "In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes,", "Did anything else happen?", "On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists." ]	C_84de9e5316c74f878c67146a49a89dbd_0	how did that album do ?	6	How did Enter Shikari's album, The Mindsweep, do?	Enter Shikari	In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On January 12, 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sound's compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Enter Shikari (sometimes stylised as enter: shikari and most commonly as ΣΠΤΣR SΗΦΚ∆RΦ) are a British rock band formed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England in 1999 by bassist Chris Batten, lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, and drummer Rob Rolfe. In 2003, guitarist Rory Clewlow joined the band to complete its current lineup, and it adopted its current name. In 2006, they performed to a growing fanbase at Download Festival as well as a sold-out concert at the London Astoria. Their debut studio album, Take to the Skies, was released in 2007 and reached number 4 in the Official UK Album Chart, and has since been certified gold in the UK. Their second, Common Dreads, was released in 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 16; while their third, A Flash Flood of Colour, was released in 2012 and debuted on the chart at number 4. Both have since been certified silver in the UK. The band spent a considerable amount of time supporting the latter release through the A Flash Flood of Colour World Tour, before beginning work on a fourth studio album, The Mindsweep, which was released in 2015. Their fifth studio album The Spark was released in 2017. Their sixth album Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible was released in April 2020. Enter Shikari have their own record label, Ambush Reality. However, they have also signed distribution deals with several major labels to help with worldwide distribution. Their eclectic musical style combines influences from rock music genres with those from various electronic music genres. History Beginnings (1999–2006) In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed, consisting of Rou Reynolds on guitar and vocals, Chris Batten on bass guitar, and Rob Rolfe on drums. They released an EP called Commit No Nuisance, which featured the tracks "Perfect Pygmalion", "Look Inside", "Torch Song", "Honesty Box" and "Fake". In 2003, with the addition of guitarist Rory Clewlow, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. The band was named after Shikari, a boat belonging to vocalist Rou Reynolds' uncle. "Shikari is a Hindi word for hunter." After the band's lineup and name change, Reynolds focused his musical efforts on vocals and electronics instead of guitar. During 2003 and 2004, the band released three demo EPs (Nodding Acquaintance, Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour and Sorry You're Not a Winner) that were available from their gigs and their website, featuring original versions of some songs that were eventually rerecorded for their debut album, Take to the Skies. They would frequently make appearances at their local youth club, The Pioneer Club, where they would play alongside other local bands. They had another demo EP planned for release in 2005 (no such EP materialized, although recordings surfaced online). For this the first versions of "Return To Energiser" and "Labyrinth" were recorded. Early versions of "OK Time for Plan B" and "We Can Breathe in Space" were also recorded around this time but it's unclear if these were destined for the EP. It was at this time that Kerrang! Radio's Alex Baker picked up on the band, and as he didn't have a physical release to play, he streamed "OK Time For Plan B" off the band's Myspace page, straight onto the airwaves. In August 2006 they released a video of the single "Mothership" which became the single of the week on the iTunes Store. Their 1st physical single featured re-recorded versions of "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which had previously been featured on one of the demo EPs. It was released on 30 October 2006. It was limited to 1000 copies of each format and sold out within the first week of release. In mid January 2007, Enter Shikari's first single, "Mothership", entered the UK singles chart for one week at number 151, on Downloads only (despite its physical formats not being eligible for charts [at the band's request]). This was followed a week later by "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B", which charted at number 182 on the singles chart (despite its physical formats being ineligible for charts [at the band's request]) and number 146 in the Download Chart. In addition "Sorry You're Not a Winner/OK Time for Plan B" featured on the EA Sports video game titles NHL 08 and Madden 08. Enter Shikari secured a spot on the Gibson/Myspace stage at 2006's Download Festival. They also had interviews with popular music press such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound. On 4 November 2006, they became only the second unsigned band to ever sell out London Astoria (the first being The Darkness). They also made the NME'''s "New Noise 2007", a list of the bands it considers most likely to achieve success in the coming year (previous years lists have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Hot Chip and Bloc Party). The next single released was "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour", on 5 March 2007. This was the band's second single to be released from their forthcoming debut album. It contained a re-recorded version of the song "Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour". It reached 27 in the Official UK chart. The band released a compilation album titled The Zone just after the debut album, this contained various demo tracks and previously released singles. Take to the Skies (2007–08) The band's debut album, Take to the Skies, was released on 19 March 2007 and on 25 March it reached number 4 in the UK Official Album Charts. It contained re-recordings of many of the songs that had featured on the demo EPs and singles that were released prior to the release of the album. During the month of March 2007 it was announced they would be playing at Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Give it a Name, Glastonbury Festival, Oxegen festival in Ireland and Rock am Ring in Germany. On 30 March 2007, Enter Shikari announced that their next single would be "Jonny Sniper" and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME. Enter Shikari had performed over 500 times by 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This was followed by three more North American tours. On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day. Common Dreads (2009–2010) It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, "Antwerpen", from their website. On 15 April 2009 "Juggernauts" was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009 with "All Eyes on the Saint" as its B side. The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of "Juggernauts". On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track.Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at No. 16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single to be released from Common Dreads was "No Sleep Tonight". The 7-inch vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked", made of clips of a live show played at Norwich UEA, was also released. A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that "we’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum 'n' bass remixes so we'll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single." However it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed. The single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, as well as the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1 on 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010. Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick. On 18 and 19 December, Enter Shikari hosted two Christmas Party shows at The Forum in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Special guest supports included Rolo Tomassi, Young Guns, Dark Stares, Don Broco and The Qemists. The audio from the shows was released via the band's limited edition box-set Live from Planet Earth - Bootleg Series Volume 3. A Flash Flood of Colour (2011–12) On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7-inch vinyl on 29 November 2010. In June 2011, the band signed to Hopeless Records in the US, and embarked on the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. In mid-2011, the band released another one-off single called "Quelle Surprise" before releasing the first single, "Sssnakepit" and "Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" in September and December, respectively, off their third album. The band released A Flash Flood of Colour on 16 January 2012, and played three album release shows in London, Kingston upon Thames, and Leeds. At the end of the first week of the album being released, the album reached number four in the U.K charts. Later that year, the band began their first tour of A Flash Flood of Colour in February by heading out to Tokyo, Japan for one show, before playing Soundwave Festival, including a couple of 'sideshows' on their off-days. The band continued their tour across the world, travelling to the United States, South Africa, Europe, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Pukkelpop, FM4 Frequency Festival, Sonisphere in Spain, T in the Park, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and many more, ranging from the end of May to the start of September. In Summer 2012's Kerrang! Awards, the band scooped 'Best Live Band' for the second time, along with Rou Reynolds winning 'Hero of the Year.' They were also nominated for best album, but lost out to Mastodon. In November 2012 the band announced the launch of their own beer "Sssnakepit", a 5% lager brewed in conjunction with Signature Brew, which was launched in Manchester and sold on the 'A Flash Flood of Christmas' tour at venues across the UK. The band were also nominated for Best British Band and Best Live Band at the Kerrang! Awards 2013, but lost out to Bring Me the Horizon and Black Veil Brides respectively. Rat Race EP (2013) In April 2013, the band released a non-album single named "The Paddington Frisk", later announcing that it was part of a then unnamed three track EP due for release later that year (Rat Race EP). On 5 June 2013, the band announced via their official Twitter that they were recording a video for the new single "Radiate", which was first played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show on 10 June. The song was his Single of the Week. 5 months later, "Rat Race" was released, the three tracks were then amalgamated into the Rat Race EP, along with a trance remix of "Radiate" created by Reynold's side project – Shikari Sound System. The band headed out on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland throughout April and May, purposefully playing in towns that don't usually get shows, as a thank you to those fans who usually have to travel to larger cities all the time to see bands. Support for the tour was Hacktivist. This tour was the first time the songs "The Paddington Frisk" was played, as well as "Juggernauts" b-side "All Eyes on the Saint" from 2009 The Mindsweep (2014–2016) In late 2012, bassist Chris Batten said that the band will begin working on their fourth studio album after their current touring has finished sometime in 2013. However, Batten also affirmed that the album would not be ready for release in that year. On 8 October 2014, the band announced that their fourth album would be titled The Mindsweep, and would be released on 19 January 2015. The album was anticipated by singles "The Last Garrison" and "Anaesthetist". In addition, two tracks were also released between November and December 2014: "Never Let Go of the Microscope" and "Slipshod". On 12 January 2015 they put for the streaming on their website the entire new album. In May 2015 they covered System of a Down's Chop Suey! for Rock Sounds compilation Worship and Tributes, while in June they participated at Ultimate Rock Heroes compilation by Kerrang! with a cover of "Know Your Enemy", originally by Rage Against the Machine. On 30 October they released their first remix album, The Mindsweep: Hospitalised, featuring remixes from drum and bass label Hospital Records artists. On 12 January 2016, a single called "Redshift" premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. Another new single called "Hoodwinker" premiered on Daniel P. Carter's show on BBC Radio 1 on 9 October 2016. On 25 August 2016, the band announced a live album for their February 2016 Alexandra Palace show. It was initially due for release on 4 November 2016, however it was delayed until 18 November 2016 due to manufacturing issues. On 8 November 2016, Enter Shikari were announced as headliners for Slam Dunk Festival 2017. The Spark (2017–2019) On 1 August 2017, Enter Shikari announced their new album The Spark with its lead single "Live Outside". The album was released on 22 September. To promote the album, the band toured UK, Europe, Japan, and North America on their The Spark World Tour. On 15 February 2019, the band released a pair of limited edition live albums, Take to the Skies. Live in Moscow. May 2017 and Live at Alexandra Palace 2 both of which were recorded in 2017 on their Take to the Skies 10 Year Anniversary Tour and their The Spark World Tour. In 2018 the band embarked on an extensive tour of the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, entitled "Stop the Clocks", during which they performed a new song of the same name. The band released the song as a single on 12 August 2019 shortly before their performances at the 2019 Reading and Leeds Festivals where they played 5 different sets across the weekend. Following this, the band resumed their Stop the Clocks tour with a twelve-date American leg, which singer Rou Reynolds said would "bring the whole 'Spark-era' full circle." Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020–present) In an interview with Kerrang while the band was in Australia for Good Things Festival, they revealed their next album will be the "most definitive Shikari record to date" and will feature something from every album. On 10 February 2020, a new single called "The Dreamer's Hotel", stylized as { The Dreamer's Hotel }, premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1. The same day, they announced that their new album would be called Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible and would release on 17 April 2020. An accompanying music video was released for The Dreamer's Hotel on 5 March 2020, almost a month after the initial release. The video features an unusual use of over-the-top rainbow effects, fitting with the rainbow motif of the album. "The King" was the album's second single, released on 8 March 2020. Frontman Rou described this track as a "lesson in patience and forgiveness" to Kerrang as they have worked on this single song for such a long time. "T.I.N.A." was the third single released on 22 March 2020. The title stands for "there is no alternative". Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible hit No. 2 on the UK album charts on 30 April 2020, 13 days after its release on 17 April. This was the band's fifth album to reach Top 10 and the third consecutive major album. The band will support the album release with a full UK tour. On 16 April 2021, they released Moratorium (Broadcasts from the Interruption) without advance notice. It includes songs from their past two albums that have been reworked, re-imagined, recorded live or as acoustic renditions. On 24 November 2021 through 10 February 2022, Enter Shikari headed out for a brief European tour. On 25 March 2022, they will pick up in Texas for a North American tour. Later on 16 July 2022, the band will release their film, Live At Vada, directed by Tom Pullen. Musical style, lyrical themes and influences Enter Shikari's musical style has been variously described as alternative rock, electronic rock, post-hardcore, electronicore (which they are considered to have pioneered), experimental rock, post-rock, and on their early releases, metalcore and synth-metal. It is recognisable for combining rock music (especially punk rock and hardcore punk) with elements of various electronic music genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, techno, electronica and trance. It features breakdowns, heavy metal and hardcore-influenced instrumentation, dub-inspired "wobbles", anthemic choruses, drum and bass tempos and an alternation between sung, screamed (or occasionally growled) and rapped vocals, with all members contributing to vocals. Enter Shikari's lyrics, written by frontman Rou Reynolds, are often politically charged. In a 2015 interview, Kerrang! Magazine wrote: "With Shikari a rare, political voice on the UK rock scene, Rou remains baffled by bands 'labelling themselves as punk that aren't speaking about anything of importance'. 'To us it's second nature,' he says. 'It's what this music is for. If you take out the social commentary, it's not punk, it's just noisy pop.'" At the same time, Reynolds "[doesn't] care if people don't read the lyrics" and only "appreciate Shikari as a noisy pop group". Although not all of the band's lyrics are political, "even when [Enter Shikari write] a love song, [Reynolds wants] to make sure [they] reclaim the love song from all the shit, vapid love songs on the charts." He also stated that the band's general message is that "if we base our lives around love and unity, then that's all that matters." Political issues that the band have written about in their lyrics include – climate change and the misuse of natural resources, Donald Trump's presidency of the United States, the use of nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom's Trident nuclear programme, the privatisation of the UK's National Health Service, and capitalism. Enter Shikari's lyrics have also centred around more personal themes throughout their career, such as lead singer Rou Reynolds' anxiety, depression, mental illness, self-pity and the loss of a loved one or idolised celebrity figure. Their album The Spark in particular delves more into personal issues within the band, with Reynolds stating in an interview with The Independent, regarding lyrical themes: "What I was trying to do with this album in marrying the personal and the political is to ensure that human vulnerability is laid bare, and to not be afraid to speak about emotions." He elaborates by stating that "I don’t think I could have done it [writing more personal lyrics] before this record. So much happened over those two years [since the release of their previous album], globally and in my personal life, so before. I was kind of comfortable. I have a very finely attuned cringe muscle, I don’t like writing about things that have been written about a thousand times. Some of it is maybe even a self-confidence thing, feeling as though I don’t have much to offer in terms of art that helps other people. But seeing as 2015 was the year of hell for me, it wasn’t just that I wanted to write a more personal record, I had to. There was no way of not doing it". In an interview following the release of A Flash Flood of Colour, guitarist Rory Clewlow stated that the band's influences are numerous, but include Refused, the Prodigy, At the Drive-In, Sick of It All, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, Igor Stravinsky and The Dillinger Escape Plan, and that "most of [their] sound was originally developed through going to see local acts in and around [their] home town." Rou Reynolds has cited British pop music from the 20th century as being a major influence on his songwriting, particularly on their album The Spark, with The Beatles, The Damned, Joy Division and New Order being key influences on him. Ambush Reality Ambush Reality is an independent record label owned by Enter Shikari. Although originally it was exclusively for the release of Enter Shikari's albums and songs, on 21 July 2014 the band announced via Facebook and Twitter they were releasing a song by Nottingham hardcore band Baby Godzilla (now known as Heck). Formed in July 2006, it is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they had to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies came out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS Entertainment Group. As of 21 June 2011, Enter Shikari's releases in North America are via independent record label Hopeless Records. Side projects Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum and bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs. His most recent EP, released for ActionAid, features samples from ActionAid's project work in Ghana. Rolfe also DJs under the moniker "Sgt. Rolfy", regularly playing slots at the band's aftershow parties. He plays a range of sounds, including trance, drum & bass, dubstep and even classical and parody tunes too. Clewlow recently released his first remix, simply as "Rory C", for Don Broco's track "Priorities", from their new record. Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company, Step Up Clothing. On 25 April 2013 the band announced a side project called Shikari Sound System, an alter-ego of the group. The band announced it on their Facebook page straight after they had been announced to play at Reading and Leeds Festival during the summer. Frontman Rou assured fans on his Twitter page that it would be "The same 4 scallywags but playing a live dance set". Shikari Sound System played their debut set at The Reading and Leeds festivals and were joined by members of hardcore band Hacktivist as well as Danny Price who now regularly hosts SSS DJ sets. Shikari Sound System were announced for Slam Dunk Festival on 24 February 2016 and have done regular slots in the UK and Europe. In 2017, Rou Reynolds released a book named Dear Future Historians, a song-by-song lyrical analysis of the band's work including photos. By popular demand, the book was revisited and expanded in 2019 to include music released since its original publication, and received another strictly limited edition run. Members Rou Reynolds – lead vocals, programming, synthesizer, keyboards, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, trumpet, percussion (1999–present) Chris Batten – bass, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion (1999–present) Rob Rolfe – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1999–present) Rory Clewlow – lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards, synthesizer (2003–present) DiscographyStudio albums Take to the Skies (2007) Common Dreads (2009) A Flash Flood of Colour (2012) The Mindsweep (2015) The Spark (2017) Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (2020) Accolades \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2006\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2006: Best British Newcomer\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="7"\|2007\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2007: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Spirit of Independence\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|"Sorry You're Not a Winner"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Single \|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Take to the Skies\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2007: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2009\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2009: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2010\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2010: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6"\|2012\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Best Album\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Rou Reynolds\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2012: Hero of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards: Hardest Working Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|A Flash Flood of Colour\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|2013\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2012: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2013: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|NME Awards 2013: Best Fan Community\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="3"\|2015 \|\| style="text-align:center;"\|"Anaesthetist"\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best Single\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2015: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|The Mindsweep\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|AIM Awards 2015: Independent Album of the Year\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2016\|\| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"\|Enter Shikari\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2016: Best British Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2017\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Heavy Music Awards 2017: Best Live Band\|\| \|- \| style="text-align:center;"\|2018\|\|style="text-align:center;"\|The Spark\|\| style="text-align:center;"\|Kerrang! Awards 2018: Best Album\|\| \|}Miscellaneous''' Rock Sound's poll for 'who will make it in 2007'. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Best Live Band 2011. Ourzone Reader's Poll: Who Will Own 2012. NME's User's Poll: Best Act at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2012. References External links British post-hardcore musical groups Electronicore musical groups English alternative rock groups English experimental rock groups English electronic music groups 2003 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1999 Musical quartets Kerrang! Awards winners Hopeless Records artists Political music groups Musical groups from St Albans	false	[ "\"How Do I Get Close\" is a song released by the British rock group, the Kinks. Released on the band's critically panned LP, UK Jive, the song was written by the band's main songwriter, Ray Davies.\n\nRelease and reception\n\"How Do I Get Close\" was first released on the Kinks' album UK Jive. UK Jive failed to make an impression on fans and critics alike, as the album failed to chart in the UK and only reached No. 122 in America. However, despite the failure of the album and the lead UK single, \"Down All the Days (Till 1992)\", \"How Do I Get Close\" was released as the second British single from the album, backed with \"Down All the Days (Till 1992)\". The single failed to chart. The single was also released in America (backed with \"War is Over\"), where, although it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, it hit No. 21 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, the highest on that chart since \"Working At The Factory\" in 1986. \"How Do I Get Close\" also appeared on the compilation album Lost & Found (1986-1989).\n\nStephen Thomas Erlewine cited \"How Do I Get Close\" as a highlight from both UK Jive and Lost & Found (1986-1989).\n\nReferences\n\nThe Kinks songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Ray Davies\nSong recordings produced by Ray Davies\n1989 songs\nMCA Records singles", "How Do You Do may refer to:\n\nHow Do You Do (Miyuki Nakajima album)\nHow Do You Do (Mayer Hawthorne album)\n\"How Do You Do!\", a song by Roxette\n\"How Do You Do?\" (beFour song)\n\"How Do You Do\" (Mouth & MacNeal song)\n\"How Do You Do\" (Shakira song)\n\"How Do You Do?\", a song by the Boomtown Rats released as the B-side to \"Like Clockwork\"\n\"How Do You Do?\", a song from the Disney film Song of the South\n\"How Do You Do?\", a song from the Wee Sing film The Marvelous Musical Mansion\n\nSee also\n How Are You (disambiguation)\n How Have You Been (disambiguation)\n How You Been (disambiguation)" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season" ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?	1	What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977.	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	true	[ "The 1978 Preakness Stakes was the 103rd running of the $210,000 Grade 1 Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race. The race took place on May 20, 1978, and was televised in the United States on the ABC television network. Affirmed, who was jockeyed by Steve Cauthen, won the race by a head over runner-up Alydar, repeating Affirmed's close victory over Alydar in the Kentucky Derby. Believe It finished 3rd, repeating his result from the Kentucky Derby. Approximate post time was 5:41 p.m. Eastern Time. The race was run on a fast track in a final time of 1:54-2/5. The Maryland Jockey Club reported total attendance of 81,261, this is recorded as second highest on the list of American thoroughbred racing top attended events for North America in 1978.\n\nLongshot Track reward took the lead early, but Affirmed took the lead entering the backstretch. Alydar had remained fairly close to the leaders and almost caught up to Affirmed entering the stretch. But Affirmed never let Alydar catch up, and won by a neck. 3rd place Believe It finished 7 1/2 lengths behind.\n\nPayout \n\nThe 103rd Preakness Stakes Payout Schedule\n\n$2 Exacta: (6–3) paid $4.00\n\nThe full chart \n\n Winning Breeder: Harbor View Farm; (FL)\n Winning Time: 1:54 2/5\n Track Condition: Fast\n Total Attendance: 81,261\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1978\n1978 in horse racing\nHorse races in Maryland\n1978 in American sports\n1978 in sports in Maryland", "Believe It (February 9, 1975 – June 5, 2002) was an American bred racehorse. His sire was In Reality and his dam was Breakfast Bell. He won 6 of his 17 starts. His biggest win was probably the 1978 Wood Memorial Stakes. He also won the 1977 Remsen Stakes, defeating Alydar by two lengths on a sloppy track, the only loss either Alydar or Affirmed suffered to a horse other than each other prior to the 1978 Kentucky Derby.\n\nEarly in 1978, The Washington Post declared Believe It to be one of the best three-year-olds in 1978, and his trainer, Woody Stephens said the colt was one of the best he had ever trained. \"Believe It was a very nice colt last year and if I know anything at all it's that he has improved greatly this winter.\" However, he lost to Alydar in the Flamingo Stakes on March 4, finishing a disappointing fourth. He lost again to Alydar in the Florida Derby on April 1 by two lengths. He bounced back in the Wood Memorial April 22, defeating Darby Creek Road by 3 1/2 lengths and completing the 1 1/8 mile race in 1:49 4/5.\n\nFollowing his victory in the Wood Memorial, he entered the 1978 Kentucky Derby as the fourth favorite at 7–1, behind Alydar, Affirmed and Sensitive Prince. After leading Affirmed by a head with a quarter mile to go, he faded to third in the Derby, behind only eventual Triple Crown winner Affirmed and Alydar. He finished the derby 2 3/4 lengths behind Affirmed and just 1 1/4 lengths behind Alydar. Two weeks later at 6-1 odds, he again finished third behind Affirmed and Alydar in the 1978 Preakness Stakes, although much farther back at 7 1/2 lengths. His jockey in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes was Eddie Maple. After the Preakness, trainer Woody Stephens announced that Believe It would not challenge the two horses in the Belmont Stakes. \"I'm going to where they ain't. In the Derby, Believe It was beaten by less than three lengths. In the Preakness, it was nearly eight. So long, Affirmed. Bye-bye, Alydar.\"\n\nStephens chose teen phenom jockey Steve Cauthen to ride Believe It in the June 18 Ohio Derby. With Cauthen aboard, Believe It was the heavy favorite, but finished sixth in the race. He was retired to stud afterwards.\n\nBelieve It sired several grade 1 winners. He was the damsire of 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Real Quiet, who lost the Triple Crown by a nose in the 1998 Belmont Stakes. Still at stud with some offspring to come in 2003, he died in his paddock on June 5, 2002 at Clear Creek Stud in Folsom, Louisiana and was buried at the farm.\n\nReferences\n\n1975 racehorse births\n2002 racehorse deaths\nAmerican Grade 1 Stakes winners\nRacehorses bred in Virginia\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nThoroughbred family 1-n" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season", "What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?", "Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977." ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	What was his time?	2	What was Affirmed's time?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths.	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	true	[ "\"What a Time\" is a song by American singer Julia Michaels featuring Irish singer Niall Horan, from her fourth EP, Inner Monologue Part 1 (2019). The song was written by Michaels, Justin Tranter, Casey Barth, and Riley Knapp, and produced by Ian Kirkpatrick and RKCB. It was sent to Australian radio on March 29, 2019, as the second single from the EP and was the second most added song days after its release. It was nominated at the Teen Choice Awards 2019 for Choice Collaboration.\n\nComposition\n\"What a Time\" has been described as a slow pop song. Lyrically, \"What a Time\" has been referred to as \"mourn[ing] the end of a relationship\". The chorus, which contains the lyrics \"I think of that night in the park, it was getting dark / And we stayed up for hours / What a time, what a time, what a time,\" has been described by MTV as \"powerful\".\n\nLive performances \nOn February 18, 2019, Michaels and Horan performed the song for the first time on The Late Late Show with James Corden. On January 15, 2020, Michaels performed a solo version of the song at the House of Blues Chicago on the Honda Stage.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was released on February 7, 2019, and was directed by Boni Mata. The video features the singer and a look-alike of Horan in a flower-strewn apartment where the two reminisce about past relationships. An acoustic video was released on March 28, 2019.\n\nAccolades\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2018 songs\n2019 singles\nJulia Michaels songs\nNiall Horan songs\nSongs written by Julia Michaels\nSongs written by Justin Tranter\nVocal duets", "Aesion (Gr. ) was an Athenian orator, and a contemporary of Demosthenes, with whom he was educated. To what party he belonged during the Macedonian time is uncertain. When he was asked what he thought of the orators of his time, he said, that when he heard the other orators, he admired their beautiful and sublime conversations with the people, but that the speeches of Demosthenes, when read, excelled all others by their skillful construction and their power. Aristotle mentions a beautiful expression of Aesion.\n\nReferences\n\n4th-century BC Athenians\nAncient Greek rhetoricians" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season", "What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?", "Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977.", "What was his time?", "He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths." ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	How fast did he run at the Belmont Park?	3	How fast did Affirmed run at the Belmont Park?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	false	[ "The 1888 Belmont Stakes was the 22nd running of the Belmont Stakes and the 22nd time it was held at Jerome Park Racetrack in The Bronx, New York where it had been first run in 1867. It was run on June 9, 1888. The race drew only two starters who both carried 118 pounds. It was won by heavily favored Sir Dixon whose winning time was 2:40¼ over a distance of 1½ miles on a dirt track rated fast.\n\nJockey Jim McLaughlin aboard Sir Dixon won his sixth Belmont Stakes, a record that still stands , and one that has been equaled only by Eddie Arcaro in 1955.\n\nResults\n\n Winning Breeder: Ezekiel F. Clay & Catesby Woodford breeding partnership (KY)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nJerome Park Racetrack\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nJerome Park, Bronx\nHorse races in New York City", "The Peter Pan Stakes is a Grade III American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds over a distance of miles (nine furlongs) run annually during the second week of May at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.\n\nHistory\nThe race is run in honor of National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame inductee, Peter Pan. Inaugurated in 1940, it was run as a handicap at one and one eighth miles until 1960 when the race was placed on hiatus. Revived at Aqueduct Racetrack in 1975, the Peter Pan Stakes was moved to Belmont Park for the 1976 running. It was contested at a distance of one mile until 1977 when it reverted to its traditional one and one eighth mile format. The race is considered a major preparatory race for the last leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes since the race is held on the same track. In cases where a horse did not enter the Kentucky Derby several horses have won the Peter Pan Stakes / Belmont Stakes double. These include High Gun (1954), Gallant Man (1957), Cavan (1958), Coastal (1979), A.P. Indy (1992), Tonalist (2014). Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Peter Pan Stakes was run on Opening Day at Saratoga Race Course.\n\nRecords\nSpeed record: (at current distance of miles)\n 1:46.35 – Oratory (2005)\n\nMost wins by a jockey:\n 4 – Eddie Maple (1975, 1993, 1995, 1997)\n\nMost wins by a trainer:\n 3 – H. Allen Jerkens (1993, 1997, 1999)\n 3 – Todd Pletcher (2004, 2006, 2015)\n\nMost wins by an owner:\n 3 – C. V. Whitney (1945, 1951, 1956)\n\nWinners\n<div style=\"font-size:90%; float:left;\">\n\nReferences\n The Peter Pan Stakes at the NYRA\n The 2008 Peter Pan Stakes at the NTRA\n\nGraded stakes races in the United States\nFlat horse races for three-year-olds\nHorse races in the United States\nBelmont Park\nRecurring sporting events established in 1940\n1940 establishments in New York (state)" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season", "What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?", "Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977.", "What was his time?", "He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths.", "How fast did he run at the Belmont Park?", "I don't know." ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	Where did he race after the Belmont?	4	Where did Affirmed race after the Belmont?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive.	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	false	[ "The 2003 Belmont Stakes was the 135th running of the Belmont Stakes. The race, known as the \"test of the champion\" and sometimes called the \"final jewel\" in thoroughbred horse racing's Triple Crown series, was held on June 7, 2003, three weeks after the Preakness Stakes and five weeks after the Kentucky Derby.\n\nNew York-bred Funny Cide won the Derby and Preakness and attracted an enthusiastic following. Before a near-record crowd, Funny Cide's attempt to win the Triple Crown was derailed by Empire Maker, who had finished second as the favorite in the Derby and had skipped the Preakness to train up to the Belmont.\n\nPre-race\nFunny Cide won the 2003 Kentucky Derby in an upset, then turned in a dominating performance to win the Preakness. For the Belmont he faced only five other horses, but all of them were more rested. In particular, Empire Maker had skipped the Preakness after finishing second in the Derby as the favorite. He was considered to have an excellent chance in the Belmont, having beaten Funny Cide earlier in the year in the Wood Memorial. \n\nA crowd of 101,562 showed up despite the cold, rainy weather. It was a near-record for Belmont Park, just behind the 2002 attendance of 103,222 that watched Sarava upset War Emblem's Triple Crown bid.\n\nRace description\nFunny Cide broke well and went to the early lead. Although he set reasonable fractions, the jockeys in the race saw cause for concern. José A. Santos on Funny Cide felt the horse was not handling the sloppy track, while Jerry Bailey on Empire Maker felt Funny Cide was running rank, wasting valuable energy. Funny Cide led for the first mile but tired around the far turn where he was passed by Empire Maker. Ten Most Wanted made a late run to finish second, while Funny Cide held on for third.\n\nDespite a Hall of Fame career, it was the first win in a Triple Crown race for trainer Robert Frankel. \"I really wanted to win it, more so for the horse,\" said Frankel. \"I just wanted to prove he was the best horse. I was very, very confident all week. I didn't think I could get beat.\"\n\nFunny Cide became the ninth horse since Affirmed in 1978 to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown, only to fall short in the Belmont. \"I am very proud for all of the New Yorkers, Spanish people and New York-bred people who came out to support this horse today,\" said Santos said. \"To win the Triple Crown is very difficult. That is why it has been 25 years since somebody did it.\"\n\nChart\n\nSource: Equibase\nTimes: — 0:23.85; — 0:48.70; — 1:13.51; mile — 1:38.05; — 2:02.62; final — 2:28.26.\nFractional Splits: (:23.85) (:24.85) (:24.81) (:24.54) (:24.57) (:25.64)\n\nPayout\nThe 135th Belmont Payout Schedule\n\n $2 Exacta (1-6): $44.00\n $2 Trifecta (1-6-4): $67.50\n\nThere was no Superfecta betting.\n\nSee also\n2003 Kentucky Derby\n2003 Preakness Stakes\n\nReferences\n\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes", "The 2018 Belmont Stakes was the 150th running of the Belmont Stakes and the 107th time the event took place at Belmont Park. The race, known as the \"test of the champion\", is the final leg in the American Triple Crown. It is a Grade I stakes race with a purse of $1.5 million, open to three-year-old Thoroughbreds. The race took place on June 9, 2018, and was broadcast on NBC starting at 4 p.m. EDT. Justify won the race with a time of 2:28.18, becoming the thirteenth American Triple Crown winner.\n\nField\nEntries for the Belmont were taken on June 5, followed by the post position draw. Justify was attempting to become the first horse to win the American Triple Crown since American Pharoah did so in 2015. He faced horses that he had previously beaten in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness, plus a few \"new shooters\" who did not compete in those races. His major competitors included:\nBravazo – sixth in the Kentucky Derby, second in the Preakness, winner of the Risen Star Stakes\nTenfold – third in the Preakness\nHofburg – seventh in the Kentucky Derby\nVino Rosso – ninth in the Kentucky Derby, winner of the Wood Memorial\nNoble Indy – 17th in the Kentucky Derby, winner of the Louisiana Derby\nFree Drop Billy – 16th in the Kentucky Derby, winner of the Breeders' Futurity\nGronkowski – a multiple stakes winner in Europe (and named after Rob Gronkowski, who became a part-owner)\nBlended Citizen – winner of the Peter Pan Stakes\n\nAudible, who finished third in the Kentucky Derby and would have been one of Justify's top competitors in the Belmont, was not considered for the race. Although the two colts have different trainers, they share common ownership (WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, Starlight Racing and Head of Plains Partners), leading some to conclude that the owners did not want to increase the pressure on Justify in his Triple Crown bid.\n\nRace description\nThe 2018 Belmont Stakes was run on June 9 over a fast track before a sold-out crowd of 90,327. The New York Racing Association had decided to cap admission for the race after logistical difficulties at the 2014 event. The on-track handle, or total amount bet on the race, was $16,159,584, up from 2017 but somewhat less that bet in 2014 and 2015 – the last two Belmonts where the Triple Crown was on the line. The all-source handle for the race was $72,702,815, up sharply from 2017 but down compared to the record set in 2014. The race was broadcast by NBC. \n\nHaving drawn post position one, Justify risked getting trapped on the rail if he started poorly. Instead, he broke well and jockey Mike Smith sent him to the lead with a quick opening quarter of 23.37. Meanwhile, the eventual runner-up Gronkowski started poorly and trailed the field. Justify then slowed down the pace as they moved around the first turn, leading by two lengths over Restoring Hope. None of the other jockeys chose to challenge Justify for the lead, so he settled into an easy stride down the backstretch, completing the opening mile in 1:38.09. Around the far turn, Restoring Hope started to tire while Vino Rosso mounted a drive to move into second place. From farther back, Gronkowski and Hofburg also started closing rapidly. Despite drifting out slightly in the stretch, Justify held off the challengers to win by lengths over Gronkowski with Hofburg another lengths back in third. Justify completed the mile and a half in 2:28.18.\n\nThe win made Justify the 13th winner of the American Triple Crown, and just the second horse to accomplish the feat while still undefeated, joining 1977 winner Seattle Slew. It was the second Triple Crown win for Baffert, who also trained American Pharoah.\n\nResults\n\nTrack: Fast\n\nTimes: mile – 23.37; mile – 48.11; mile – 1:13.21; mile – 1:38.09; miles – 2:02.90; final – 2:28.18.\nSplits for each quarter-mile: (23.37) (24.74) (25.10) (24.88) (24.81) (25.28)\n\nSource: Equibase Chart\n\nPayouts\n\n $1 Exacta: (1-6) $44.50\n $1 Trifecta: (1-6-4) $229.74 \n $1 Superfecta: (1-6-4-8) $1,051.50\n\nSource: Equibase chart\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBelmontStakes.com\n\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes\nBelmont Stakes" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season", "What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?", "Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977.", "What was his time?", "He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths.", "How fast did he run at the Belmont Park?", "I don't know.", "Where did he race after the Belmont?", "On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive." ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	Was Alydar his biggest rival?	5	Was Alydar Affirmed's biggest rival?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two.	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	true	[ "Alydar (March 23, 1975 – November 15, 1990) was a chestnut colt and an American Thoroughbred race horse who was most famous for finishing a close second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. With each successive race, Alydar narrowed Affirmed's margin of victory; Affirmed won by 1.5 lengths in the Kentucky Derby, by a neck in the Preakness and by a head in the Belmont Stakes. Alydar has been described as the best horse in the history of Thoroughbred racing never to have won a championship. Alydar's fame continued when he got older. He died under suspicious circumstances.\n\nRacing career\nTrained by John M. Veitch (who also trained Alydar's half-sister, Eclipse Award winning Our Mims) and ridden by jockey Jorge Velásquez, in 1978 Alydar dueled with Affirmed in all three legs of the Triple Crown he lost to his arch-rival by a combined total of less than two lengths. The 1978 Belmont Stakes, the third (and final) leg of the series, is considered by many as one of the most exciting races in the history of the sport. In that race, Alydar and Affirmed dueled side by side from the middle of the far turn all the way to the wire, with Affirmed barely holding on to win by a head to claim the Triple Crown.\n\nIn his racing career Alydar won 14 of 26 starts, finishing second 9 times and third once, and earned purses totalling $957,195. He raced against Affirmed ten times in his career, winning three. Alydar was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1989. In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Alydar was ranked #27.\n\nAt stud\nAlydar was a major success as a stallion. His offspring include Hall of Fame Eclipse Award Champion Easy Goer; Alysheba, winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and the Breeders' Cup Classic; Kandaly, 1994 Louisiana Derby winner; Turkoman, Strike the Gold, Criminal Type, Althea, Alydaress, Benchmark, Stella Madrid, and Miss Oceana. He is also the broodmare sire of Peintre Celebre, Cat Thief, Anees, Ajina, Aly's Alley, Gio Ponti, and Lure.\n\nSuspicious death\nOn November 13, 1990, Alydar appeared to have shattered his right hind leg in his stall at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Emergency surgery was performed the next day in an attempt to repair the injury, but the leg broke again. On November 15, Alydar was euthanized. At the time the owner of Calumet Farm was in dire trouble financially, but suspicions of foul play by the management were not raised until federal prosecutors investigated in the late 1990s. John Thomas (J.T.) Lundy was indicted and convicted in 2000 on separate but related fraud charges—bribing a bank executive for favorable loans—and served nearly four years in prison. The farm's former attorney, Gary Matthews, was also convicted and received a 21-month prison sentence. The Texas Monthly described Alydar's death as \"a sweeping saga of greed, fraud, and almost unimaginable cruelty that could have been lifted straight from a best-selling Dick Francis horse-racing novel.\" Alydar is buried at Calumet Farm.\n\nIn Houston federal court, MIT professor George Pratt testified that Alydar had to have been killed. He speculated that someone had tied the end of a rope around Alydar's leg and attached the other end of the rope to a truck that could easily have been driven into the stallion barn. The truck then took off, pulling Alydar's leg from underneath him until it snapped; he testified that the force involved was at least three times that which a horse was able to exert. About five days before Alydar's injury his original night watchman, Harold \"Cowboy\" Kipp, testified that he was at work on the farm when he was ordered to take Tuesday, November 13 off.\n\nRivalry with Affirmed \n\nFinal: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3\n\n*In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win.\n\nPedigree\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Auerbach, Ann Hagedorn. Wild Ride, The Rise and Tragic Fall of Calumet Farm, Inc., America's Premier Racing Dynasty. Henry Holt & Co. .\n\nExternal links\n QuickTime of stretch run of 1978 Belmont Stakes from NYRA\n Alydar's career details\n Affirmed vs. Alydar\n\n1975 racehorse births\n1990 racehorse deaths\nChefs-de-Race\nHorse monuments\nRacehorses bred in Kentucky\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nThoroughbred family 9-c\nUnited States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees", "Believe It (February 9, 1975 – June 5, 2002) was an American bred racehorse. His sire was In Reality and his dam was Breakfast Bell. He won 6 of his 17 starts. His biggest win was probably the 1978 Wood Memorial Stakes. He also won the 1977 Remsen Stakes, defeating Alydar by two lengths on a sloppy track, the only loss either Alydar or Affirmed suffered to a horse other than each other prior to the 1978 Kentucky Derby.\n\nEarly in 1978, The Washington Post declared Believe It to be one of the best three-year-olds in 1978, and his trainer, Woody Stephens said the colt was one of the best he had ever trained. \"Believe It was a very nice colt last year and if I know anything at all it's that he has improved greatly this winter.\" However, he lost to Alydar in the Flamingo Stakes on March 4, finishing a disappointing fourth. He lost again to Alydar in the Florida Derby on April 1 by two lengths. He bounced back in the Wood Memorial April 22, defeating Darby Creek Road by 3 1/2 lengths and completing the 1 1/8 mile race in 1:49 4/5.\n\nFollowing his victory in the Wood Memorial, he entered the 1978 Kentucky Derby as the fourth favorite at 7–1, behind Alydar, Affirmed and Sensitive Prince. After leading Affirmed by a head with a quarter mile to go, he faded to third in the Derby, behind only eventual Triple Crown winner Affirmed and Alydar. He finished the derby 2 3/4 lengths behind Affirmed and just 1 1/4 lengths behind Alydar. Two weeks later at 6-1 odds, he again finished third behind Affirmed and Alydar in the 1978 Preakness Stakes, although much farther back at 7 1/2 lengths. His jockey in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes was Eddie Maple. After the Preakness, trainer Woody Stephens announced that Believe It would not challenge the two horses in the Belmont Stakes. \"I'm going to where they ain't. In the Derby, Believe It was beaten by less than three lengths. In the Preakness, it was nearly eight. So long, Affirmed. Bye-bye, Alydar.\"\n\nStephens chose teen phenom jockey Steve Cauthen to ride Believe It in the June 18 Ohio Derby. With Cauthen aboard, Believe It was the heavy favorite, but finished sixth in the race. He was retired to stud afterwards.\n\nBelieve It sired several grade 1 winners. He was the damsire of 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Real Quiet, who lost the Triple Crown by a nose in the 1998 Belmont Stakes. Still at stud with some offspring to come in 2003, he died in his paddock on June 5, 2002 at Clear Creek Stud in Folsom, Louisiana and was buried at the farm.\n\nReferences\n\n1975 racehorse births\n2002 racehorse deaths\nAmerican Grade 1 Stakes winners\nRacehorses bred in Virginia\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nThoroughbred family 1-n" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season", "What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?", "Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977.", "What was his time?", "He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths.", "How fast did he run at the Belmont Park?", "I don't know.", "Where did he race after the Belmont?", "On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive.", "Was Alydar his biggest rival?", "Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two." ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	Did Affirmed stop racing prior to Alydar?	6	Did Affirmed stop racing prior to Alydar?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	false	[ "Alydar (March 23, 1975 – November 15, 1990) was a chestnut colt and an American Thoroughbred race horse who was most famous for finishing a close second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown. With each successive race, Alydar narrowed Affirmed's margin of victory; Affirmed won by 1.5 lengths in the Kentucky Derby, by a neck in the Preakness and by a head in the Belmont Stakes. Alydar has been described as the best horse in the history of Thoroughbred racing never to have won a championship. Alydar's fame continued when he got older. He died under suspicious circumstances.\n\nRacing career\nTrained by John M. Veitch (who also trained Alydar's half-sister, Eclipse Award winning Our Mims) and ridden by jockey Jorge Velásquez, in 1978 Alydar dueled with Affirmed in all three legs of the Triple Crown he lost to his arch-rival by a combined total of less than two lengths. The 1978 Belmont Stakes, the third (and final) leg of the series, is considered by many as one of the most exciting races in the history of the sport. In that race, Alydar and Affirmed dueled side by side from the middle of the far turn all the way to the wire, with Affirmed barely holding on to win by a head to claim the Triple Crown.\n\nIn his racing career Alydar won 14 of 26 starts, finishing second 9 times and third once, and earned purses totalling $957,195. He raced against Affirmed ten times in his career, winning three. Alydar was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1989. In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Alydar was ranked #27.\n\nAt stud\nAlydar was a major success as a stallion. His offspring include Hall of Fame Eclipse Award Champion Easy Goer; Alysheba, winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and the Breeders' Cup Classic; Kandaly, 1994 Louisiana Derby winner; Turkoman, Strike the Gold, Criminal Type, Althea, Alydaress, Benchmark, Stella Madrid, and Miss Oceana. He is also the broodmare sire of Peintre Celebre, Cat Thief, Anees, Ajina, Aly's Alley, Gio Ponti, and Lure.\n\nSuspicious death\nOn November 13, 1990, Alydar appeared to have shattered his right hind leg in his stall at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Emergency surgery was performed the next day in an attempt to repair the injury, but the leg broke again. On November 15, Alydar was euthanized. At the time the owner of Calumet Farm was in dire trouble financially, but suspicions of foul play by the management were not raised until federal prosecutors investigated in the late 1990s. John Thomas (J.T.) Lundy was indicted and convicted in 2000 on separate but related fraud charges—bribing a bank executive for favorable loans—and served nearly four years in prison. The farm's former attorney, Gary Matthews, was also convicted and received a 21-month prison sentence. The Texas Monthly described Alydar's death as \"a sweeping saga of greed, fraud, and almost unimaginable cruelty that could have been lifted straight from a best-selling Dick Francis horse-racing novel.\" Alydar is buried at Calumet Farm.\n\nIn Houston federal court, MIT professor George Pratt testified that Alydar had to have been killed. He speculated that someone had tied the end of a rope around Alydar's leg and attached the other end of the rope to a truck that could easily have been driven into the stallion barn. The truck then took off, pulling Alydar's leg from underneath him until it snapped; he testified that the force involved was at least three times that which a horse was able to exert. About five days before Alydar's injury his original night watchman, Harold \"Cowboy\" Kipp, testified that he was at work on the farm when he was ordered to take Tuesday, November 13 off.\n\nRivalry with Affirmed \n\nFinal: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3\n\nIn their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win.\n\nPedigree\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Auerbach, Ann Hagedorn. Wild Ride, The Rise and Tragic Fall of Calumet Farm, Inc., America's Premier Racing Dynasty. Henry Holt & Co. .\n\nExternal links\n QuickTime of stretch run of 1978 Belmont Stakes from NYRA\n Alydar's career details\n Affirmed vs. Alydar\n\n1975 racehorse births\n1990 racehorse deaths\nChefs-de-Race\nHorse monuments\nRacehorses bred in Kentucky\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nThoroughbred family 9-c\nUnited States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees", "Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later.\n\nAffirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth.\n\nBackground\nAffirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name \"Affirmed\" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk.\n\nRacing record\n\n1977: two-year-old season\nAs a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two.\n\nAffirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive.\n\nAffirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record.\n\nThe two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. \"He never gave up\", said Cauthen, \"even when he was headed.\"\n\nAlydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt.\n\n1978: three-year-old season\nAffirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes.\n\nThe Triple Crown\nAlydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series.\n\nIn the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck.\n\nAlydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him.\n\nIn the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man.\n\nHis Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later.\n\nAfter the Triple Crown\nAffirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts.\n\nAlydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3.\n\nAffirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose.\n\nAs a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse.\n\n1979: four-year-old season\nAs a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year.\n\nAffirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career.\n\nAffirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts.\n\nHis trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: \"Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar.\"\n\nAffirmed's full race record is listed below:\n\nStud record\nAffirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including:\n Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US\n Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993\n Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown.\n The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million\n Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas\n\nThough Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup).\n\nIn 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm.\n\nRivalry with Alydar \n\nFinal: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3\n\nIn their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win.\n\nHonors\nIn the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12.\n\nHis career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980.\n\nPedigree\n\nSee also\n List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Affirmed's Kentucky Derby\n Preakness winners\n\n1975 racehorse births\n2001 racehorse deaths\nRacehorses bred in Florida\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nUnited States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees\nKentucky Derby winners\nPreakness Stakes winners\nTriple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners\nAmerican Thoroughbred Horse of the Year\nEclipse Award winners\nBelmont Stakes winners\nAmerican Grade 1 Stakes winners\nThoroughbred family 23-b" ]
[ "Affirmed", "1977: two-year-old season", "What was the biggest race Affirmed won in 1977?", "Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977.", "What was his time?", "He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths.", "How fast did he run at the Belmont Park?", "I don't know.", "Where did he race after the Belmont?", "On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive.", "Was Alydar his biggest rival?", "Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two.", "Did Affirmed stop racing prior to Alydar?", "I don't know." ]	C_a2e6d137cb274a0891b74b29f3c7ab97_1	What was the highest purse Affirmed won?	7	What was the highest purse Affirmed won?	Affirmed	As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a 3 1/2 length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by 2 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 2/5 for 6 1/2 furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up," said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by 1 1/4 lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Affirmed (February 21, 1975 – January 12, 2001) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eleventh winner of the American Triple Crown. Affirmed was well known for his famous rivalry with Alydar, whom he met ten times, including coming second in all three Triple Crown races. After Affirmed won the Triple Crown, there was a 37-year wait until American Pharoah swept the series in 2015, more than a quarter of a century later. Affirmed won fourteen Grade One stakes races over his career and was a champion each of the three years he raced. At age two in 1977, he was named the champion two-year-old after winning the Hollywood Juvenile Championship, Sanford, Hopeful, Belmont Futurity and Laurel Futurity. At age three, he was named 'Horse of the Year' for winning the Triple Crown and other major stakes races such as the Santa Anita Derby, Hollywood Derby and Jim Dandy Stakes. He repeated as Horse of the Year at age four after winning the final seven races in his career, all but one of which was a Grade I stakes race. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980. On the Blood-Horse magazine list of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, he was ranked twelfth. Background Affirmed was a chestnut horse bred in Marion County, Florida by Louis Wolfson's Harbor View Farm. The derivation of the name "Affirmed" has been the subject of speculation, in part because the conviction of Wolfson, for securities law violations, had been affirmed on appeal in 1969, resulting in his imprisonment. Affirmed was sired by the Harbor View stallion Exclusive Native, a high-class racehorse and breeding stallion, whose other progeny included the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk. Racing record 1977: two-year-old season As a two-year-old, Affirmed won seven of his nine starts, with two placings, for earnings of $343,477 under regular rider Steve Cauthen, then a teenager. Notably, six of those starts were against his rival, Calumet Farm's Alydar, with Affirmed winning four and Alydar winning two. Affirmed won his first start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on May 24, 1977. He followed up with a win in the Youthful Stakes on June 15 where he defeated Alydar by eight lengths. On July 6 in the Great American Stakes, Alydar evened the score with a length win after mounting a powerful stretch drive. Affirmed was then shipped across country to Hollywood Park, where he won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship Stakes on July 23. He then shipped back to New York where he won the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga on August 17 by lengths over the previously undefeated Tilt Up. In his next start on August 27 in the Hopeful Stakes, his main rival was Alydar, who was the even money favorite after winning four straight races. Affirmed stalked the early pace set by Tilt Up with Alydar in close contention. Around the far turn, Affirmed moved to the lead with Alydar closing ground on the outside. In mid-stretch, Alydar had closed to within a head but Affirmed pulled away in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by half a length. His time of 1:15 for furlongs was a new stakes record. The two horses again faced off in the Belmont Futurity on September 10, with Affirmed going off as the narrow favorite. After a good start, Affirmed settled into second place behind longshot Rough Sea, while Alydar overcame a bad start to move into third place down the backstretch. Rounding into the stretch, Affirmed moved to the lead. Alydar responded and the two horses dueled head-to-head for the final furlong. Alydar appeared to be in the lead for much of the stretch drive before Affirmed rallied in the final stride to win by a nose. "He never gave up", said Cauthen, "even when he was headed." Alydar turned the tables in the Champagne Stakes on October 15, sweeping by Affirmed in the stretch to win by lengths. The two faced off again in the Laurel Futurity on October 29, then one of the most prestigious races for two-year-olds in the country, with Affirmed winning by a neck. With his 4-2 margin in the series against Alydar, Affirmed was named the 1977 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. 1978: three-year-old season Affirmed started his three-year-old campaign on the West Coast with an allowance race win in March, followed by victories in the San Felipe Stakes, Santa Anita Derby and Hollywood Derby. Meanwhile, Alydar was preparing for the Kentucky Derby with wins in the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes. The Triple Crown Alydar was made the 6–5 favorite for Kentucky Derby, with Affirmed the second choice at 9–5 and undefeated Sensitive Prince the third choice at 9–2. At the start of the Kentucky Derby, Sensitive Prince took the early lead as Affirmed ran in third through the early stages, while Alydar stayed far back. Affirmed made a strong move for the lead on the far turn, put away a challenge by Wood Memorial winner Believe It, and held off Alydar's fast-closing charge to win by lengths. Affirmed now had a 5–2 edge in the series. In the Preakness Stakes, Affirmed set the pace. Alydar made his big move on the far turn, at the same point in the race where Affirmed made his winning move in the Derby. Affirmed held a short lead entering the stretch and held it to defeat Alydar by a neck. Alydar's partisans assumed that the mile distance of the Belmont, two furlongs longer than the Derby and 5/16 of a mile longer than the Preakness Stakes, would favor Alydar with his finishing style and staying pedigree, and he would deny Affirmed the Triple Crown. Trainer Veitch removed Alydar's blinkers for the Belmont, saying that if Alydar got a better look at Affirmed, maybe he would get by him. In the Belmont, Affirmed led and set a very slow pace, going the first quarter mile in 25 seconds and the half in 50 seconds. Alydar's jockey, Jorge Velásquez, put Alydar close to the pace, and moved alongside Affirmed with more than seven furlongs to go. For more than six furlongs (half the distance of the race), the colts raced neck and neck, pulling away from the rest of the field. Alydar got his nose in front at mid-stretch, but just as Affirmed appeared to tire, Cauthen went to a left-handed whip, something he had never done before in his eight rides on Affirmed. Affirmed won by a nose to become racing's 11th (and last winner for 37 years until American Pharoah won in 2015), Triple Crown winner. After the third slowest start in Belmont Stakes history, they raced the fastest last mile in Belmont Stakes history, in 1:14, the mile in 1:37 and finished in 2:26 . It was, at the time, the third fastest Belmont ever, behind Secretariat and Gallant Man. His Triple Crown win set two records: the shortest and longest gaps between the previous and next Triple Crown winners. Affirmed's win in 1978 was the first time the Triple Crown had been won in consecutive years (Seattle Slew won in 1977). Affirmed's win also marked the start of the longest gap until the next Triple Crown winner, with American Pharoah's win on June 6, 2015, occurring 37 years later. After the Triple Crown Affirmed returned to racing in early August in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. He nearly became an upset loser to the front-running Sensitive Prince but closed in the last 100 yards in a race that Laz Barrera considered one of Affirmed's finest efforts. Alydar and Affirmed met once more, in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Affirmed, piloted by Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay substituting for the injured Cauthen, cut off Alydar entering the far turn, causing his rival to hit the rail and almost go down, losing six lengths before recovering his stride. Affirmed finished first but was disqualified and placed second. The horses never met again, and the final winning tally stood at Affirmed 7, Alydar 3. Affirmed then prepared to meet another major rival: 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. The 1978 Marlboro Cup Invitational Handicap marked the first time in racing history that two Triple Crown winners ever met in a race. Seattle Slew was a speed horse and got the first quarter mile in 24 seconds under jockey Angel Cordero, who never allowed Affirmed to get close. Seattle Slew won by three lengths in 1:45 for the one-turn mile and . The two horses met once more, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. This time, Affirmed was to be aided by his stablemate Life's Hope, who was entered in the race to extend Seattle Slew in the early stages. However, Affirmed's saddle slipped during the race, leaving his jockey with almost no control. He tired to finish unplaced for the only time in his career as Exceller and jockey Willie Shoemaker defeated Seattle Slew by a nose. As a three-year-old, Affirmed won 8 of 11 starts with 2 seconds and 1 unplaced run, for earnings of $901,541. He was named Horse of the Year despite the losses to Alydar, Seattle Slew, and Exceller, and was also named the American Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse. 1979: four-year-old season As a four-year-old in 1979, Affirmed started the season with a third place in the Malibu Stakes and a second in the San Fernando Stakes. He had a five race losing sequence prior to starting in the Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Laz Barrera replaced Cauthen with Pincay and Affirmed didn't lose again and would dominate the handicaps the rest of the year. Affirmed won the Strub Stakes, and then ran in the Santa Anita Handicap against Exceller, who had defeated Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978. Affirmed won easily, running the miles in 1:58, under 128 pounds while setting a stakes record in California's most important stakes race that stood until 2014. Affirmed then went to Hollywood Park, where he won the Californian Stakes under 130 pounds giving runner-up Syncopate 16 pounds. Next, carrying top weight of 132 pounds, he won the Hollywood Gold Cup in a three horse finish, from Sirlad (120 pounds) and Text (119 pounds), setting an all time earnings record and running the miles in a fast 1:58 . Affirmed picked up the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, and then faced one more all-time great horse, three-year-old Spectacular Bid, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, also at Belmont. Spectacular Bid, like Alydar, preferred to run off the pace, and once again, Affirmed was allowed to set a slow pace, going the first half mile in 49 seconds. Spectacular Bid issued challenges at Affirmed, but Affirmed won. Spectacular Bid was undefeated during the rest of his racing career. Affirmed was named Horse of the Year and the American Champion Older Male Horse of 1979, having won 7 of 9 starts with 1 second and 1 third as a four-year-old and earning $1,148,800. In his career, Affirmed earned a then record $2,393,818 (the first Thoroughbred in North America to win over $2 million) with 22 wins, 5 seconds and 1 third from 29 starts. His trainer, Laz Barrera, once said: "Affirmed is greater than Secretariat, or any Triple Crown winner, because only Affirmed had to face Alydar." Affirmed's full race record is listed below: Stud record Affirmed was syndicated at a then-record $14.4 million. At stud, Affirmed sired over 80 stakes winners, 9 champions with earnings in excess of $44,000,000 (through 2004) including: Charlie Barley (USA), stakes winner in US Flawlessly, North America's grass course champion in 1992 and 1993 Peteski (CAN), won USA Molson Export Million Stakes and Canadian Triple Crown. The Tin Man, won multiple Grade I races, including the Arlington Million Trusted Partner (USA), won G1 IRE One Thousand Guineas Though Affirmed never raced on the turf (grass) he was a noted sire of turf runners, most notably multiple Grade I winners Flawlessly and The Tin Man. As a broodmare sire, his daughters have notably produced Honey Ryder (G1W on turf) and Pleasantly Perfect (G1W on dirt & synthetic, notable wins include Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup). In 2001, Affirmed was euthanized after falling seriously ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease. The same disease has also led to the death of fellow Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. He was buried whole—the ultimate honor for a race horse—at Jonabell Farm, wearing the flamingo pink colors of his original owners, Harbor View Farm. Rivalry with Alydar Final: Affirmed 7, Alydar 3 *In their final meeting, Affirmed drifted in, forcing Alydar to be taken up on the backstretch. While Affirmed finished ahead of Alydar, the stewards decided to disqualify Affirmed from first to second, giving Alydar the final win. Honors In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Affirmed was ranked #12. His career has been honored with his election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1980. Pedigree See also List of leading Thoroughbred racehorses Notes References External links Affirmed's Kentucky Derby Preakness winners 1975 racehorse births 2001 racehorse deaths Racehorses bred in Florida Racehorses trained in the United States United States Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame inductees Kentucky Derby winners Preakness Stakes winners Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winners American Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Eclipse Award winners Belmont Stakes winners American Grade 1 Stakes winners Thoroughbred family 23-b	false	[ "The 1978 Preakness Stakes was the 103rd running of the $210,000 Grade 1 Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race. The race took place on May 20, 1978, and was televised in the United States on the ABC television network. Affirmed, who was jockeyed by Steve Cauthen, won the race by a head over runner-up Alydar, repeating Affirmed's close victory over Alydar in the Kentucky Derby. Believe It finished 3rd, repeating his result from the Kentucky Derby. Approximate post time was 5:41 p.m. Eastern Time. The race was run on a fast track in a final time of 1:54-2/5. The Maryland Jockey Club reported total attendance of 81,261, this is recorded as second highest on the list of American thoroughbred racing top attended events for North America in 1978.\n\nLongshot Track reward took the lead early, but Affirmed took the lead entering the backstretch. Alydar had remained fairly close to the leaders and almost caught up to Affirmed entering the stretch. But Affirmed never let Alydar catch up, and won by a neck. 3rd place Believe It finished 7 1/2 lengths behind.\n\nPayout \n\nThe 103rd Preakness Stakes Payout Schedule\n\n$2 Exacta: (6–3) paid $4.00\n\nThe full chart \n\n Winning Breeder: Harbor View Farm; (FL)\n Winning Time: 1:54 2/5\n Track Condition: Fast\n Total Attendance: 81,261\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1978\n1978 in horse racing\nHorse races in Maryland\n1978 in American sports\n1978 in sports in Maryland", "The Affirmed Stakes is a Grade III American thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old horses over a distance of miles on the dirt held at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California in late-June. The race currently offers a purse of $100,000.\n\nHistory\n\nThe inaugural running of the event was on 30 June 1979 at Hollywood Park Racetrack as the Silver Screen Handicap at a distance of miles and was won by the promising three year old Valdez who won by 10 lengths, which continues to be the longest winning margin in the event. \n\nThe event inherited the grading classification which was Grade II from the Argonaut Handicap which some sources believe is the predecessor to the event. However, the former Hollywood Park Media Guide management organization and the current Santa Anita management consider the event to have no connection.\n\nIn 1993 the race was renamed to the Affirmed Handicap in honor of the 1978 U.S. Triple Crown champion, Affirmed. \n\nIn 1995 the distance of the event was decreased to miles. \n\nAfter Hollywood Park Racetrack was closed in 2013 the race was moved to Santa Anita Park.\n\nIn 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Santa Anita closed their track and the event was cancelled\n\nRecords\nSpeed record: \n miles – 1:40.83 General Challenge (1999)\n miles – 1:46.80 Journey At Sea (1982)\n\nLargest margin of victory:\n 10 lengths – Valdez (1979)\n\nMost wins by a jockey:\n 5 – Laffit Pincay, Jr. (1979, 1984, 1985, 1990, 1992)\n\nMost wins by a trainer:\n 6 – Bob Baffert (1999, 2006, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2019)\n\nMost wins by an owner:\n 2 – Karl Watson, Michael E. Pegram & Paul Weitman (2011, 2015)\n\nWinners\n\nLegend:\n\n \n \n\nNotes:\n\nƒ Filly or Mare\n\nSee also\n List of American and Canadian Graded races\n\nReferences\n\nFlat horse races for three-year-olds\nHorse races in California\nGraded stakes races in the United States\nRecurring sporting events established in 1979\nSanta Anita Park\n1979 establishments in California\nGrade 3 stakes races in the United States" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism" ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	What did he write about?	1	What did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar write about?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook.	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	false	[ "I Write What I Like (full name I Write What I Like: Selected Writings by Steve Biko) is a compilation of writings from anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.\n\nI Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Student Organisation, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. Originally published in 1978, the book was republished in 1987 and April 2002. The book's title was taken from the title under which he had published his writings in the SASO newsletter under the pseudonym Frank Talk.\n\nI Write What I Like reflects Biko's conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness Movement that he helped found.\n\nThe collection was edited by Aelred Stubbs. The book includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness Movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.\n\nReferences\n\n1978 non-fiction books\n2002 non-fiction books\nBooks about apartheid\nPolitical books\nSouth African non-fiction books", "This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) is the third studio album by American rock band Chevelle. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 based on nearly 90,000 copies sold in its first week, it charted higher than its predecessor, Wonder What's Next but did not exceed its debut position. The album did not manage to match its predecessor's commercial success, but was certified platinum. This Type of Thinking follows generally the same heavy style as Wonder What's Next with popular singles like \"Vitamin R\" and \"The Clincher\". It would be the first of two records produced by Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette. This was also the final album featuring bassist Joe Loeffler, who departed from the band in 2005.\n\nBackground and recording\nComing off a highly successful major label debut, Chevelle finishing touring on December 17, 2003. They set out to write a follow-up album from scratch at the onset of the following year in what drummer Sam Loeffler described as a different approach to writing. He also noted how the band felt significant pressure from their label to not simply match but topple the platinum success of Wonder What's Next. In a 2004 interview, Loeffler described the process of approaching This Type of Thinking:\n\"We went home for Christmas and after New Year's we went into the studio and we said, 'All right, we have to write a whole record in basically four months.' We had no songs, so we had to write that whole record and we ended up taking five months. We wanted to go heavy, we wanted to do a lot of double-bass drum, kind of syncopated rhythms, and we wanted to basically write songs that we could bob our heads to. That was sort of where we started. We're a heavy melodic rock band, that's what we like to write, and that's what we like to play. And that's what we did.\"\n\nThis time around, Chevelle opted to produce their own album with the help of Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette. This Type of Thinking would continue the balance of melody and heaviness of its predecessor. And much like the final track on Wonder What's Next, \"Bend the Bracket\" would be recorded simply as an acoustic demo for its unpolished presentation.\n\nCritical reception\n\nAllMusic editor Johnny Loftus observes the album as \"...flatly mixed, lost in depression, and obsessed with rewriting \"Sober\" for a new generation of lank-haired misunderstoods.\"\n\nMelodic calls it \"...a real quality album that you will never get bored of.\", praising the songs \"The Clincher\", \"Vitamin R (Leading Us Along)\" and \"Another Know It All\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nChevelle\n Pete Loeffler – guitar, vocals\n Joe Loeffler – bass, backing vocals\n Sam Loeffler – drums\n\nTechnical personnel\n Andy Wallace – mixing\n Ben Goldman – A&R\n Christian Lantry – photography\n Dave Holdredge – digital editing, drum programming, engineer\n Eddy Schreyer – mastering\n Farra Mathews – A&R\n Jef Moll – assistant\n Josh Wilbur – digital editing\n Katharina Fritsch – cover sculpture\n Kevin Dean – assistant\n Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette – engineer, producer\n Sean Evans – art direction\n Steve Sisco – assistant\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2004 albums\nAlbums produced by Michael Baskette\nChevelle (band) albums\nEpic Records albums" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism", "What did he write about?", "He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook." ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	What recognition has he gotten for writing?	2	What recognition has Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gotten for writing?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	true	[ "Jess Hill is an Australian investigative journalist. In 2020, she won the Stella Prize for her non-fiction work See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse.\n\nBiography \nHill started her journalism career as a producer for ABC Radio National. In 2011, she relocated to Cairo, Egypt, to become Middle East correspondent for The Global Mail. She then moved into investigative journalism, working for ABC's Background Briefing programme. In 2014 she began writing about domestic violence.\n\nHer book, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse, was published in 2019 and won the 2020 Stella Prize for Australian women's writing. In 2019, it was announced that Hill would present a three-part television documentary based on the book, which would be screened on SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) in 2020.\n\nIn 2020, Hill is the inaugural journalist-in-residence at the University of Technology Sydney.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn 2015, Hill received three Our Watch Awards for her reporting on domestic violence – the Our Watch Gold Award, the Best Series or Special Award (for her series on family violence, broadcast on ABC Radio National) and the Best Longform Award (for Home Truths: The costs and causes of domestic violence, published in The Monthly).\n\nIn 2016, Hill received two Walkley Awards — one for Women's Leadership in Media, and one for a piece of feature writing on the Family Court of Australia, Suffer the Children: Trouble in the Family Court. This piece of writing also earned Hill an Amnesty International Australia Media Award.\n\nIn addition to winning the Stella Prize, See What You Made Me Do was a finalist for both the 2019 Walkley Book Award and 2019 Australian Human Rights Commission Media Award, and shortlisted for the 2020 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction. It was also shortlisted for the 2020 Davitt Award for best nonfiction crime book.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n21st-century Australian journalists\n21st-century Australian women writers", "Bohumil Říha (22 February 1907 – 15 December 1987) was a Czech writer best known for children's books. For his lasting contribution to children's literature he received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1980.\n\nCareer\nOne of his most noted works is Children's Encyclopaedia (1959) that has since its publication enjoyed almost a cult following – its structure offers, besides information for beginning readers, more detailed information for children who wish to learn more about any of the subjects.\n\nOther works include The River (1962, co-authored by Karel Friedrich), The Great Picture Book for Children (1976), The Great Animal Picture Book (1981; both together with Milena Lukešová), and Merry Tales – And What Else? (1964).\n\nHe died in Prague.\n\nThe biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Jansson received the writing award in 1966.\n\nWorks \n\n Čech Země dokořán, 1950\n Dvě jara, 1952\n Venkovan, 1955 – first part, 1958 – second part\n Doktor Meluzin, 1973 filmed under the title Dým bramborové natě\n Divný člověk\n O rezavém rváči a huňatém pánovi, 1971\nTrilogy about the rule of George of Poděbrady:\n Přede mnou poklekni, 1971\n Čekání na krále, 1977\n A zbyl jen meč, 1978\n\nChildren's books \n\n O lékaři Pingovi, 1941\n O třech penízcích, 1941\n Honzíkova cesta, 1954\n O letadélku Káněti, 1957\n Pět bohů táhne přes moře\n Jak vodníci udobřili sumce\n Dva kluci v palbě\n Velká obrázková knížka pro malé děti, 1959, co author M. Lukešová\n Divoký koník Ryn\n Jak jel Vítek do Prahy\n Dětská encyklopedie, illustrations Vladimír Fuka; 1959, 1962, 1966, 1971''\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\n1907 births\n1987 deaths\nCzech children's writers\nHans Christian Andersen Award for Writing winners\nSocialist realism writers\n20th-century Czech novelists\n20th-century male writers" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism", "What did he write about?", "He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook.", "What recognition has he gotten for writing?", "In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine" ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	What is he an activist for?	3	What is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar an activist for?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion,	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	true	[ "Ibrahim Ceesay is a Gambian social justice activist, human rights defender, Activist, Peace activist and an award winner of the film Hand of Fate. He is the Executive Director of the African Artists Peace Initiative (AAPI) and also leads and volunteers with various youth organizations on various projects.\n\nCareer\nIbrahim Ceesay is the Executive Director of Children and Community Development Initiative for Development (CAID) and Film Director who is a social justice activist, he was named by the Gambia News and Report weekly magazine because of what the management of the magazine said was his highly acclaimed film Hand of Fate.\n\nAwards \nHe was awarded for the best direct of the movie Hand of Fate and has had several nomination in Africa and the UN as youth ambassador. He was Gambian Personality of the Year in 2013.\n\nReferences \n\nGambian film people\nGambia articles by importance\nLiving people\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)", "The term eco-warrior is a self-description for an environmental activist that adopts a 'hands-on' effort to save a plot of land. In the UK it coined the term in the 1990s, a label that many people actively taking ecological direct action resisted, for philosophical reasons. \n\nA common symbol of an eco-warrior is the Eco Warriors Flag.\n\nAnother use of the term refers to an environmental activist who engages in illegal activities, also known as eco-terrorism. However, an eco-warrior is also someone who utilizes the courts to halt, suspend, or otherwise derail a human activity that the activist believes adversely impacts the environment.\n\nTypes\nAn eco-warrior can be someone who engages in an environmental organisation (e.g. Greenpeace) or an environmental company that delivers safekeeping or improvements for the environment (e.g. directly by selling environmental products).\n\nNotable eco-warriors and warrior actions \n In 2006, an eco-warrior group who sabotaged heavily polluting terrain vehicles became known in Paris (France), calling themselves 'Les Dégonflés'.\n Another well-known British \"eco-warrior\" is Daniel Hooper, who is also known as Swampy.\n Chico Mendes and Ken Saro-Wiwa are the most famous green activists in Brazil and Nigeria, respectively.\n Made famous in the US for a hurling a brick through the window of a McDonald's during the so-called \"Battle in Seattle\", French activist and small-scale cheese farmer José Bové has been fighting neo-liberalism on his home turf for decades.\n Paul Watson and the direct-action conservation group known as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he founded, can be called eco-warriors for their direct engagements of ships engaging in overfishing and commercial whaling.\n Penti Baihua is an internationally known Huaorani. The Huaorani, like many other indigenous peoples, are very much interested in putting a stop to illegal logging on their homeland, and also embrace the concept of ecotourism to supply in funds to help in the protection of their local biodiversity.\n Timothy Treadwell was an activist for the protection of grizzly bears in Alaska.\n The direct action of William Bunting saved the wildlife habitat of Thorne Moors from the planned dumping of 32 million tons of fuel-ash, peat-cutting and drainage, and caused the reinstatement of public footpaths on maps of the same Moors.\n\nSee also \n Eco Warriors Flag\n\nReferences\n\nEnvironmentalism" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism", "What did he write about?", "He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook.", "What recognition has he gotten for writing?", "In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine", "What is he an activist for?", "Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion," ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	What religions did he support?	4	What religions did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar support?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	false	[ "Edward Geoffrey Simons Parrinder (April 10, 1910 – June 16, 2005) — known as E.G. Parrinder or Geoffrey Parrinder — was a professor of Comparative Religion at King's College London, a Methodist minister, and the author of over 30 books. At least one — What World Religions Teach Us (1968) — achieved bestseller status. He was an authority, and pioneering researcher, on West African indigenous religions.\n\nBiography\n\nParrinder was Professor of the Comparative Study of Religion in the University of London. After ordination (1936) he spent twenty years teaching in West Africa and Studying African religions, before becoming the founder member of the Department of Religious Studies in University College of Ibadan, Nigeria.\n\nHe traveled widely in Africa, and in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Israel, Jordan and Turkey and held lecturing appointments in Australia, India and America and at Oxford. He worked as a missionary in Benin and Côte d'Ivoire for nearly two decades beginning in 1933, and became an authority on indigenous West African religions.\n\nFrom 1958 until his retirement in 1977, he taught at King's College London. Among his students there was the future Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.\n\nBooks\n\nWest African Religion: Illustrated from the Beliefs and Practices of Yoruba, Ewe, Akan and Kindred Peoples (1949); London: Epworth Press\n2nd edition (1961) as West African Religion: A Study of the Beliefs and Practices of Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Ibo and Kindred Peoples\nAfrican Psychology (1951)\nReligion In An African City (1953)\nAfrican Traditional Religion, London: SPCK, (1954)\n2nd edition (19??)\n3rd edition (1970); Harper Forum Books/Greenwood Pub. Group \nThe Story Of Ketu (1956)\n2nd edition as The Story Of Ketu: An Ancient Yoruba Kingdom (1967); Ibadan University Press\nWitchcraft: European and African (1958), London: Faber & Faber, (1963), (1970) \nAlso published as Witchcraft: A Critical Study Of The Belief In Witchcraft From The Records Of Witch Hunting In Europe Yesterday And Africa Today \nAn Introduction to Asian Religions (1958); S.P.C.K \nThe Bible and Polygamy: A Study of Hebrew and Christian Teaching (1958); S.P.C.K \nA Daily Bible and Prayerbook (1960); S.P.C.K \nWorship in the World's Religions (1961, 1974)\nComparative Religion (1962); Allen & Unwin\n2nd edition (1975); Praeger \nThe Faiths of Mankind: A Guide to The World's Living Religions (1965); Crowell\nRevised (1967) as The Handbook of Living Religions Arthur Barker Ltd (England) \nRevised (1974) as The World's Living Religions; Pan Macmillan\nA Book of World Religions (1965); Hulton Educational Publications \nThe Christian Approach to the Animist (1966); Edinburgh House Press [Pamphlet]\nThe Christian Debate: Light from the East (1966); Doubleday & Co\nAfrican Mythology, Hamlyn Publ Group Ltd (1967), \nThe Significance of the Bhagavad-Gītā for Christian Theology [Lecture] (1968); Dr. Williams's Trust \nWhat World Religions Teach Us (1968)\nReligion in Africa (1969); Penguin \n2nd edition (1976) as Africa's Three Religions; Sheldon Press\nMan and His Gods: Encyclopaedia of the World's Religions (1971)\nU.S. title: Religions of the World: From Primitive Beliefs to Modern Faiths; Madison Square Press\nRevised edition (1983) as World Religions: From Ancient History to the Present; Facts on File, \nA Dictionary of Non-Christian Religions, Westminster John Knox Press (1973), \nA Book of World Religions\nJesus in the Quran, Oneworld Publications (1995), \nAvatar and Incarnation: A Comparison of Indian & Christian Beliefs, London: Faber & Faber, (1970), Oxford University Press. (1982) \nUpanishads, Gita, and Bible: A Comparative Study of Hindu and Christian Scriptures, Harper & Row (1972), \nThe Indestructible Soul: The Nature of Man and Life after Death in Indian Thought (1973); Allen & Unwin\nThe Bagavad Gita: A Verse Translation, Sheldon Press: London (1974), , Dutton Books (1975), , Oneworld Publications (1996) \nSomething After Death? (1974); NCEC\nThe Wisdom of the Forest: Selections from the Hindu Upanishads, New York: New Directions, (1976), \nMysticism in the World's Religions Sheldon Press in UK: 1976, . Oxford University Press in USA: 1977, . Oneworld Publications: 1995, \nThe Wisdom of the Early Buddhists (1977); Directions\nSex in the World's Religions, Oxford University Press. (1980), \nRevised edition (1996) as Sexual Morality in the World's Religions, Oneworld Publications \nEncountering World Religions: Questions of Religious Truth, Crossroad Pub. Co. (1987), \nA Dictionary of Religious and Spiritual Quotations (1990); Routledge\n2nd edition (2000) as The Routledge Dictionary of Religious and Spiritual Quotations; Routledge \nCollins Dictionary of Religious & Spiritual Quotations (1992); HarperCollins\nSon of Joseph: The Parentage of Jesus, T. & T. Clark Publishers, Ltd. (1993), \nA Concise Encyclopedia of Christianity (1998); Oneworld Publications \nThe Sayings Of The Buddha (1998); Ecco\nWisdom of Jesus, Oneworld Publications (2000), \nWest African Psychology: a Comparative Study of Psychological and Religious Thought, James Clarke Company, (2002),\n\nExternal links\nObituary in The Guardian\n\n1910 births\n2005 deaths\nAcademics of King's College London\nBritish Methodists", "Indigenous religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the religious belief systems of communities described as being \"indigenous\". This category is often juxtaposed against others such as the \"world religions\" and \"new religious movements\". The term is commonly applied to a range of different belief systems across the Americas, Australasia, Asia, Africa, and Northern Europe, particularly to those practiced by communities living under the impact of colonialism.\n\nThe term \"indigenous religions\" is usually applied to the localised belief systems of small-scale societies. These belief systems do not typically engage in proselytization, thus distinguishing them from movements like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism that all seek converts and which are typically classified as \"world religions\"; unlike Judaism, even though it is often referred to as a “world religion”. They are also often characterised as being distinct from the \"world religions\" because they are orally transmitted, intertwined with traditional lifestyles, and pluralist. Numerically, the majority of the world's religions could be classed as \"indigenous\", although the number of \"indigenous religionists\" is significantly smaller than the number of individuals who practice one of the \"world religions\".\n\nWithin the study of religion there has been much debate as to what the scope of the category should be, largely arising from debates over what the term \"indigenous\" should best encompass. For instance, the Japanese religion of Shinto is often referred to as an \"indigenous religion\" although, because the Japanese are not a colonised society but have colonised neighbouring societies like that of the Ainu, there is debate as to whether they meet the definition of \"indigenous\". In some cases, practitioners of new religions like Heathenry have sought to present theirs as \"indigenous religions\" although have faced scepticism from scholars of religion.\n\nDefinition\n\nThe academic study of religions has used three concepts through which to categorise different religious groups: \"world religions\", \"new religious movements\", and \"indigenous religions\". The scholar of religion Carole M. Cusack noted that \"indigenous religions\" were rejected from the \"world religions\" category because they \"are typically this-wordly, orally transmitted, non-proselytizing, folk-oriented, expressed in myths and traditional law, and pluralist.\"\n\nIn the nineteenth century, the dominant ways to refer to these religions were \"primitive religion\" or \"non-literate religion,\" as they were seen as offering insight into how religion was practiced by the earliest humans. Another term, \"primal religion,\" was coined by Andrew Walls in the University of Aberdeen in the 1970s to provide a focus on non-Western forms of religion as found in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. However, according to the scholar of religion Graham Harvey, such approaches preference Western industrialized people and the course of Protestant Enlightenment culture. Likewise, James Cox, Walls's student, argues that terms such as \"primal religion,\" \"primitive religion,\" and \"tribal religion\" suggest an undeveloped religion which can be seen as a preparation for conversion to Christianity.\n\nGraham Harvey states that indigenous religions constitute the majority of the world's religions. At the same time, he noted that \"indigenous religionists\" do not numerically make up the majority of religious people.\n\nSome indigenous religions have gained as much global visibility as some of the \"world religions\". For instance, musicians influenced by the belief systems of the Maori, Indigenous Australian, and Canadian First Nations peoples have had their work exposed to an international audience.\n\nExamples\n\nThe Japanese religion Shinto is often described as an \"indigenous religion\", although the scholar of Asian studies John K. Nelson noted that it is often left \"unclear\" as to what is meant by the term \"indigenous\" in this context. He noted, for example, that there remain debates as to when the ancestors of the Japanese arrived in the islands that now make up Japan and that there were other communities, such as the Ainu, who lived on some of these islands before them.\n\nMany followers of Heathenry, a modern Pagan religion that scholars recognise as a new religious movement, like to regard their belief system as an \"indigenous religion\". In claiming a sense of indigeneity, some Heathens—particularly in the United States—attempt to frame themselves as the successors to the pre-Christian belief systems of linguistic Germanic communities in Northern Europe and thus victims of Medieval Christian colonialism and imperialism. The scholars Jenifer Snook, Thad Horrell, and Kirsten Horton argued that in doing so, these Heathens ignore the fact that most of them are white, and thus members of the same ethnic community which has perpetrated and benefitted from colonial and imperial policies against indigenous communities in the Americas and elsewhere.\n\nSee also\n Ethnic religion\n Ethnoreligious group\n\nSources\n\nFootnotes\n\nBibliography\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nReligious faiths, traditions, and movements\nReligious studies\nIndigenous culture" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism", "What did he write about?", "He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook.", "What recognition has he gotten for writing?", "In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine", "What is he an activist for?", "Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion,", "What religions did he support?", "I don't know." ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	What celebrities did he work with?	5	What celebrities did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar work with?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper.	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	false	[ "Khit Thit Pyo May (; lit. Girls in New Era) is a popular Burmese live talk show broadcast on MRTV-4. The talk show follows the conversations of beautiful and talented women. The panel covers a wide range of topics but mostly focuses on girls. For instance, the group discusses news and links them to issues that many women find interesting. Experts and celebrities often make guest appearances. The daily TV show is broadcast every morning since 2012.\n\nKhit Thit Pyo May was listed on The Myanmar Times \"Top 10 Myanmar TV Shows\" in 2019.\n\nBroadcast schedule\nMondays live show– meeting with the astrologers for ask about business, health, education, love affair and marriage affair. The astrologer answers what people ask about business, health, education, love affair and marriage affair from phone and Facebook page.\nTuesdays live show– meeting with the doctors for ask about health. The doctor answers what people ask about health from phone and Facebook page.\nWednesdays live show– meeting with successful men or women for ask life improvement. He or she answers what people ask about life improvement from phone and Facebook page.\nThursdays live show– meeting for ask women's beauty and physical activities with related persons. He or she answers what people ask about women's beauty and physical activities from phone and Facebook page.\nFridays live show– meeting with celebrities for ask about art activities. The celebrity answers what people ask about his or her art activities from phone and Facebook page.\nSaturdays live show– meeting with celebrities or famous persons for ask about love affair. The celebrity or famous person answers live what people asking about love affair from phone and Facebook page.\nSundays recorded show– extra day and not live show, talking with famous persons and other information.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nBurmese television series\nTelevision series by MRTV-4", "What Would Tyler Durden Do? (WWTDD) is a gossip blog named for the Fight Club character Tyler Durden. The wording played on the Christian inspirational phrase 'What would Jesus do?' The blog, which published material that was not safe for work, published rumors, criticism and revealing photographs of celebrities. The posts to the blog typically consisted of a report followed by commentary from the author. Its readership was primarily from the United States. In a 2006 Youth Trends survey, What Would Tyler Durden Do? was one of two blogs of the top 10 most popular websites with females aged 17–25, a popularity the researcher attributed to \"Gen Y females' current adoration with content surrounding celebrities and their 'uh oh' moments.\" It was cited by Mashable in 2008 as one of the 30 most salacious celebrity gossip sites on the Internet. The blog explains its purpose as follows:\n\nAn author, known by the online name \"Brendon\", edited the site until his dismissal in 2012. Since 2012, the site was written and edited by satirist, Lex Jurgen. By 2014, the site had grown to three million monthly readers. Citing differences of opinion with ownership on what the hell was funny, Jurgen announced his departure in January 2018 for new professional pursuits. Little is known of the current staff following Jurgen's resignation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nWhat Would Tyler Durden Do?\n\nGossip blogs" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism", "What did he write about?", "He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook.", "What recognition has he gotten for writing?", "In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine", "What is he an activist for?", "Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion,", "What religions did he support?", "I don't know.", "What celebrities did he work with?", "he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper." ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	What kind of tribute?	6	What kind of tribute did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar perform for Muhammad Ali?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	false	[ "Learn: The Songs of Phil Ochs is a cover album by the band Kind of Like Spitting. The songs included were all written by the U.S. protest singer Phil Ochs. The CD booklet features Ben Barnett's studious commentary on the songs. It was released on September 6, 2005 on Hush Records.\n\nTrack listing\n \"I'm Tired\" – 2:03\n \"You Can't Get Stoned Enough\" – 2:09\n \"Draft Dodger Rag\" – 2:18\n \"That's What I Want to Hear\" – 3:05\n \"Outside of a Small Circle of Friends\" – 3:08\n \"Where Were You in Chicago\" – 0:42\n \"When I'm Gone\" – 3:50 \n \"I Ain't Marching Anymore\" – 2:38\n \"Remember Me\" – 2:18\n\nExternal links\nKind of Like Spitting on MySpace\nHush Records\n\n2000 albums\nPhil Ochs tribute albums\nKind of Like Spitting albums\nHush Records albums", "Inner City Blues: the Music of Marvin Gaye (also known as Inner City Blues: A Tribute to Marvin Gaye) is a tribute album to soul singer Marvin Gaye who died in 1984. It was released in 1995 on the Motown Records label. The album was not a success on the music charts and sales were low. Many critics panned the album, although, Allmusic stated \"I Want You\" was the album's standout tracks, and WBLS (New York) DJ Félix Hernández selected \"Stubborn Kind of Fellow\" as his choice in his yearly tribute to Marvin Gaye on his \"Rhythm Revue\" program.\n\nAn eclectic group of artists from Marvin's own daughter, Nona Gaye to the UK soul and pop diva, Lisa Stansfield's reading on \"Just to Keep You Satisfied\" to Bono's take on \"Save the Children\". The artists selected were, for the most part, some of the biggest stars of 1990s pop and soul.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)\" – Nona Gaye\n\"Save the Children\" – Bono\n\"Let's Get It On\" – Boyz II Men\n\"I Want You\" – Madonna and Massive Attack\n\"Trouble Man\" – Neneh Cherry\n\"Just to Keep You Satisfied\" – Lisa Stansfield \n\"Stubborn Kind of Fellow\" – Stevie Wonder and For Real\n\"God Is Love\"/\"Mercy Mercy Me\" – Sounds of Blackness\n\"Like Marvin Gaye Said (What's Going On)\" – Speech\n\"Marvin, You're the Man\" – Digable Planets\n\nReferences\n\nMarvin Gaye tribute albums\n1995 compilation albums\nRhythm and blues compilation albums\nMotown compilation albums" ]
[ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar", "Writing and activism", "What did he write about?", "He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook.", "What recognition has he gotten for writing?", "In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine", "What is he an activist for?", "Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion,", "What religions did he support?", "I don't know.", "What celebrities did he work with?", "he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper.", "What kind of tribute?", "I don't know." ]	C_3ee15bcbe235434eaa91f75cc4585eca_1	Anything interesting about his writing?	7	Anything interesting about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's writing?	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as a special assistant coach for the Lakers. He had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence that he exerted on the league during his playing days, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, which led to the impression that he disliked journalists. In his biography My Life, Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too-enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and he refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his future coaching prospects. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. In 2016, he performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. He is also co-author of a comic book published by Titan Comics entitled Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook. On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall but only weighing 225 lb (102 kg) (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author and cultural critic. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. (The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.) Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of an all-black armored unit that served with distinction in Europe. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar participated in the national UCLA alumni commercial entitled "My Big UCLA Moment". The UCLA commercial is featured on YouTube. On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcasted live throughout the school, city, and state. Commentating on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying: "the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." CANNOTANSWER	The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps.	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to the league's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving called him the greatest basketball player of all time. With him on the team, parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, won 71 consecutive basketball games. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark "skyhook" shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the "Showtime" era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball. Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a nigger. College career Now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year at UCLA, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included fellow high school All-Americans Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz and Lynn Shackelford. On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams. He made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage: Sports Illustrated described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points. During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969); was a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968 and 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. Alcindor had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA. During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston." During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression." At the time, the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to declare early for the draft. Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year, before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles. School records As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Highest career scoring average: 26.4 Most career field goals: 943 (tied with Don MacLean) Most points in a season: 870 (1967) Highest season scoring average: 29.0 (1967) Most field goals in a season: 346 (1967) (also, the second most: 303 (1969), and third: 294 (1968)) Most free throw attempts in a season: 274 (1967) Most points in a single game: 61 Most field goals in a single game: 26 (vs. Washington State, February 25, 1967) He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton. Professional career Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) Rookie of the Year (1969–1970) The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, the Nets bid too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying, "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that." Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game (with the first being Wilt Chamberlain). He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018. First championship, MVP, and Finals MVP (1970–1971) The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series. MVP recognition and trade request (1971–1975) During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward, he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (, Karīm Abd al-Jabbār), its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]". Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Boston Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44. Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989) Fourth and fifth MVP awards (1975–1977) In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42. Afer acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. However, Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA. He won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays. Playoff disappointments (1977–1979) Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals). Last MVP award and championship success (1979–1985) In 1979, the Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of the draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for a Laker dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in 1980 and continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. He won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. On April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points. While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. Final playing years and sixth ring (1985–1989) Prior to the 1986–87 season, Abdul-Jabbar gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Coaching career In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA. Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks. Player profile On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. He was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable. A strict fitness regime made him one of the most durable players of all time. In 1985–86, Abdul-Jabbar broke the previous NBA record of 16 seasons held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes; he finished his career with a then-record 20 seasons played. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition. Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "skyhook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. With his long arms and great height, the skyhook was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. As a right-handed player, he was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, although he was adept at shooting it with either hand, making it a reliable and feared offensive weapon. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". Legacy Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a league-record six MVP awards. He earned six championship rings, two Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA First or Second Teams, a record 19 NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is especially impressive because this stat was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries." After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, Abdul-Jabbar continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever, and league experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Julius Erving in 2013 said, "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold when it went for $501,900 at auction in 2016. That record has since been surpassed. NBA career statistics Regular season \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| style="background:#cfecec;"\|82* \|\| \|\| 43.1 \|\| .518 \|\| \|\| .653 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 82 \|\| \|\| 40.1 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .690 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 3.3 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 31.7* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 44.2 \|\| .574 \|\| \|\| .689 \|\| 16.6 \|\| 4.6 \|\| \|\| \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 34.8* \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 76 \|\| \|\| 42.8 \|\| .554 \|\| \|\| .713 \|\| 16.1 \|\| 5.0 \|\| \|\| \|\| 30.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 81 \|\| \|\| 43.8 \|\| .539 \|\| \|\| .702 \|\| 14.5 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 65 \|\| \|\| 42.3 \|\| .513 \|\| \|\| .763 \|\| 14.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.3* \|\| 30.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .529 \|\| \|\| .703 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 16.9* \|\| 5.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.1* \|\| 27.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 36.8 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| .579* \|\| \|\| .701 \|\| 13.3 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 62 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .550 \|\| \|\| .783 \|\| 12.9 \|\| 4.3 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 25.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 39.5 \|\| .577 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 12.8 \|\| 5.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 4.0* \|\| 23.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 82 \|\| \|\| 38.3 \|\| .604 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 10.8 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\|style="background-color:#cfecec"\| 3.4* \|\| 24.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| \|\| 37.2 \|\| .574 \|\| .000 \|\| .766 \|\| 10.3 \|\| 3.4 \|\| .7 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 26.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 76 \|\| 76 \|\| 35.2 \|\| .579 \|\| .000 \|\| .706 \|\| 8.7 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 32.3 \|\| .588 \|\| .000 \|\| .749 \|\| 7.5 \|\| 2.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 21.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 32.8 \|\| .578 \|\| .000 \|\| .723 \|\| 7.3 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .7 \|\| 1.8 \|\| 21.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .599 \|\| .000 \|\| .732 \|\| 7.9 \|\| 3.2 \|\| .8 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 22.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 79 \|\| 79 \|\| 33.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .000 \|\| .765 \|\| 6.1 \|\| 3.5 \|\| .8 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 23.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 78 \|\| 78 \|\| 31.3 \|\| .564 \|\| .333 \|\| .714 \|\| 6.7 \|\| 2.6 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 80 \|\| 80 \|\| 28.9 \|\| .532 \|\| .000 \|\| .762 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 14.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 74 \|\| 74 \|\| 22.9 \|\| .475 \|\| .000 \|\| .739 \|\| 4.5 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 10.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 1,560 \|\| 625 \|\| 36.8 \|\| .559 \|\| .056 \|\| .721 \|\| 11.2 \|\| 3.6 \|\| .9 \|\| 2.6 \|\| 24.6 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| All-Star \|bgcolor="EOCEF2" \| 19 \|\| 13 \|\| 24.9 \|\| .493 \|\| .000 \|\| .820 \|\| 8.3 \|\| 2.8 \|\| .4 \|\| bgcolor="EOCEF2"\|2.1 \|\| 13.9 Playoffs \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1970 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 10 \|\| \|\| 43.5 \|\| .567 \|\| \|\| .733 \|\| 16.8 \|\| 4.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1971† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 14 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .515 \|\| \|\| .673 \|\| 17.0 \|\| 2.5 \|\| \|\| \|\| 26.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1972 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 11 \|\| \|\| 46.4 \|\| .437 \|\| \|\| .704 \|\| 18.2 \|\| 5.1 \|\| \|\| \|\| 28.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1973 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 6 \|\| \|\| 46.0 \|\| .428 \|\| \|\| .543 \|\| 16.2 \|\| 2.8 \|\| \|\| \|\| 22.8 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1974 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Milwaukee \| 16 \|\| \|\|47.4 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .736 \|\| 15.8 \|\| 4.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 32.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1977 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 11 \|\| \|\| 42.5 \|\| .607 \|\| \|\| .725 \|\| 17.7 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 34.6 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1978 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .521 \|\| \|\| .556 \|\| 13.7 \|\| 3.7 \|\| .7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 27.0 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1979 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 8 \|\| \|\| 45.9 \|\| .579 \|\| \|\| .839 \|\| 12.6 \|\| 4.8 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 28.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1980† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 41.2 \|\| .572 \|\| \|\| .790 \|\| 12.1 \|\| 3.1 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 31.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1981 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 3 \|\| \|\| 44.7 \|\| .462 \|\| \|\| .714 \|\| 16.7 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 26.7 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1982† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| \|\| 35.2 \|\| .520 \|\| \|\| .632 \|\| 8.5 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 20.4 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1983 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| \|\| 39.2 \|\| .568 \|\| .000 \|\| .755 \|\| 7.7 \|\| 2.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 3.7 \|\| 27.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1984 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 21 \|\| \|\| 36.5 \|\| .555 \|\| \|\| .750 \|\| 8.2 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 23.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1985† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 19 \|\| 19 \|\| 32.1 \|\| .560 \|\| \|\| .777 \|\| 8.1 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.2 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 21.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\|1986 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 14 \|\| 14 \|\| 34.9 \|\| .557 \|\| \|\| .787 \|\| 5.9 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.1 \|\| 1.7 \|\| 25.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\|1987† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 18 \|\| 18 \|\| 31.1 \|\| .530 \|\| .000 \|\| .795 \|\| 6.8 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .4 \|\| 1.9 \|\| 19.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#afe6ba;"\| 1988† \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 29.9 \|\| .464 \|\| .000 \|\| .789 \|\| 5.5 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .6 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 14.1 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 1989 \| style="text-align:left;"\| L.A. Lakers \| 15 \|\| 15 \|\| 23.4 \|\| .463 \|\| \|\| .721 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .3 \|\| .7 \|\| 11.1 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2\| Career \| 237 \|\| 90 \|\| 37.3 \|\| .533 \|\| .000 \|\| .740 \|\| 10.5 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 24.3 Athletic honors Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995) College: 2× Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 2× Oscar Robertson Trophy winner (1967, 1968) 2× UPI College Basketball Player of the Year (1967, 1969) 3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969) 3× NCAA champion (1967–1969) 3× NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969) Naismith College Player of the Year (1969) 3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969) National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2007) National Basketball Association: Rookie of the Year (1970) 6× NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988) 6× NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 6× Sporting News NBA MVP (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980) 2× Finals MVP (1971, 1985) Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985) One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996) Elected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team (2021) November 16, 2012 – a statue of Abdul-Jabbar was unveiled in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles Film and television Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee). In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane!. Abdul-Jabbar has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour!. Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot, but the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that, according to his father, he doesn't "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap, "The hell I don't!", then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!". He instructs the boy to "Tell your old man old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes". When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism. Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. He also appeared in the television version of Stephen King's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report, in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06" and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions. In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, "The D&D Vortex". Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Writing In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of Veronica Mars. Documentaries On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film On the Shoulders of Giants, documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in an HBO documentary on his life, Kareem: Minority of One. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration. Reality television Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series Splash, a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold. Writing and activism Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography Giant Steps, was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album Giant Steps. Others include On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes, co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II. Abdul-Jabbar has also been a regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television. He has written a regular column for Time, for example, and he appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, January 25, 2015, to talk about a recent column, which pointed out that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it." In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in Jacobin magazine calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing, "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he strongly condemned it, saying, "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle." Government appointments Cultural ambassador In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths. President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations". Personal life Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom Full House with him. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar performed a tribute to friend Muhammad Ali along with Chance the Rapper. Religion and name At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused. Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas. In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA. Health problems Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe that the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is now a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces his cancer medication, Gleevec. In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement. "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that," Abdul-Jabbar said. "My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Non-athletic honors In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution. Works Books Kareem, with Mignon McCarthy (1990) Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2004) On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors with Raymond Obstfeld (2012) Streetball Crew Book One Sasquatch in the Paint with Raymond Obstfeld (2013) Streetball Crew Book Two Stealing the Game with Raymond Obstfeld (2015) Mycroft Holmes with Anna Waterhouse (September 2015) Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White with Raymond Obstfeld (2016) Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court (2017) Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court (2017) Mycroft and Sherlock with Anna Waterhouse (October 9, 2018) Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse (September 24, 2019) Audio book On the Shoulders of Giants: An Audio Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance 8-CD Set Vol. 1–4, with Avery Brooks, Jesse L. Martin, Maya Angelou, Herbie Hancock, Billy Crystal, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Julius Erving, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Bill Russell, Coach John Wooden, Stanley Crouch, Quincy Jones and other chart-topping musicians, as well as legendary actors and performers such as Samuel L. Jackson. (2008) References External links 1947 births 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers African-American basketball coaches African-American basketball players African-American former Christians African-American male actors African-American Muslims African-American non-fiction writers African-American Sunni Muslims All-American college men's basketball players American former Christians American Jeet Kune Do practitioners American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American male non-fiction writers American men's basketball players American people of Yoruba descent American Sunni Muslims Basketball coaches from New York (state) Basketball players at the 1967 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1968 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players at the 1969 NCAA University Division Final Four Basketball players from Los Angeles Basketball players from New York City Centers (basketball) College basketball announcers in the United States Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism Former Roman Catholics Living people Los Angeles Clippers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers assistant coaches Los Angeles Lakers players Male actors from New York City Milwaukee Bucks draft picks Milwaukee Bucks players Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Basketball Association All-Stars National Basketball Association players with retired numbers New York Nets draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Participants in American reality television series People from Inwood, Manhattan Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Seattle SuperSonics assistant coaches Sportspeople from Manhattan Time (magazine) people UCLA Bruins men's basketball players United States Basketball League coaches Writers from Los Angeles Writers from Manhattan	true	[ "\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison", "The Banksy Job is a 2016 documentary film directed by Ian Roderick Gray and Dylan Harvey about how self-described \"art terrorist\" Andy Link (AK47) stole Banksy's sculpture, The Drinker.\n\nFunding for the film was crowdsourced in 2015 through Ivorlotte. The film premiered at the April 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Andy Link attempted to attend the festival, but was denied a visa because of his criminal record.\n\nReception\nAlex Needham of The Guardian gave the film two out of five stars. He wrote that it \"might entertain Banksy obsessives, and its elaborate re-creation of the incident and its aftermath surfs fact and fiction in a moderately interesting way. Yet it never convinces us that this story was worth telling.\" Needham also criticized the character AK47, writing that \"he doesn't say anything amusing, or even interesting, in the course of the whole film.\"\n\nJohn DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a more positive review, saying that it would appeal to fans of Exit Through the Gift Shop. He praised the film's execution of the crime as \"bumblingly funny\" and the subsequent developments as \"no less entertaining than a football in the groin.\" Alina Cohen of Hyperallergic praised the film for providing \"some great British humor, a compelling main character, and some well-deserved cultural mockery.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n Grayscale Productions\n\n2016 films\nBritish documentary films\nBritish films\nBritish heist films\nCrowdfunded films\nDocumentary films about visual artists\nBanksy" ]
[ "Ralph Bakshi", "Coonskin (1973-1975)" ]	C_cc037de80dfe462eb3e88e6cd11ee43d_1	Did anyone protest the Coonskin film?	1	Did anyone protest the Ralph Bakshi Coonskin film?	Ralph Bakshi	In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form--cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated--if not the box office obstacles--seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to animator, and then director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and is the most successful independent animated feature of all time. Over the next 11 years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews, consequently being his last theatrical feature-length film to date. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997). During the 2000s, he focused largely on fine art and painting, and in 2003, co-founded the Bakshi School of Animation with his son Eddie and Jess Gorell. Bakshi has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival. Early life Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them. According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails". In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!" The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events. At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning. Career Early career (1956–1968) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor. At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of Mighty Mouse Playhouse on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes in recognition of the new segment. Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs, and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Production of Mighty Heroes ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons. Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Fritz the Cat (1969–1972) In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), to which Bakshi was steadfastly opposed, having wanted to kill Fritz off to avoid further movies. After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born. Heavy Traffic (1972–1973) By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. Due to the success of Fritz the Cat, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada. Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. The New York Times Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982) After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973. An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promotion of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop. The live-action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara. Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy. As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsdays Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival. American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998. By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Fire and Ice was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan." Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at Spümcø, but nothing came from this either. Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes. During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown. On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy. The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity." As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project. Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!" Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors". In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon!: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled. Painting, teaching and new animation projects (2000–2013) Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. On December 14, 2001, he did some paintings for the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2003, he appeared as the Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" of John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts, Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. Last Days of Coney Island (2013–2016) In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film, Last Days of Coney Island. Actor Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Last Days of Coney Island was released on Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on YouTube on 13 October 2016. Post-animation (2015–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. Accolades In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival the same year he began teaching an animation class in New Mexico - this became The Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning, which is run by Ralph's son Edward and his partner Jess Gorell. The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation. In the 1980s and 1990s he served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute. In 2021, Ralph Bakshi won the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award for his animation career and the impact of his films. Legacy The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. His rotoscoping techniques in Lord of the Rings inspired the animation rotoscoping techniques of the independent film The Spine of Night in which the animator developed his own rotoscope style by watching behind-the-scenes footage of Bakshi's warehouse and reverse-engineering it. Billie Eilish had the idea for an animated version of herself for her in the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (which is a promotion for the album of the same name) and suggested to director Patrick Osborne that the character should have a 1980s look and rotoscope-ish animation. Eilish referenced the works of Bakshi and animator Richard Williams to him. Gore Verbinski commented about Bakshi and showed that he was inspired by him during an interview in The Hollywood Reporter for his first animated movie, Rango, saying: "What happened to the Ralph Bakshis of the world? We're all sitting here talking family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can't articulate what." On January 12, 2014, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, there was a special screening of Bakshi's film American Pop with actors Ron Thompson and Mews Small in attendance, it was the first time lead actor Ron Thompson had ever introduced the film before a live audience. At the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, on March 27, 2015, there was a screening of Heavy Traffic and American Pop with Bakshi, Ron Thompson and Mews Small attending. Fritz the Cat has also been called an animated art film. Filmography Films Television I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of the Super Hero IV Animated in conjunction with Doug Compton V Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" Releases and ratings Bibliography Ralph Bakshi: A Private selection of drawings released from the Bakshi Archives. 2018 - 2019; Book 1 (2019) Ralph Bakshi: No Rhyme or Reason; Book 2 (2020) See also Heavy Metal Ron Thompson John Kricfalusi Katsuhiro Otomo Rock & Rule Independent animation New Hollywood Notes References External links Official page filmography Archived 'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung interview at PopMatters Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi, Lessons in Artistry, Rebellion and Success a profile at AgentPalmer.com 1938 births American animators American comic strip cartoonists American experimental filmmakers American film producers American animated film producers American storyboard artists American television directors Television producers from New York City American television writers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male writers American male screenwriters American male voice actors American animated film directors American people of Palestinian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists American satirists Jews in Mandatory Palestine Living people American male television writers People from Haifa Terrytoons people Underground cartoonists American voice directors Krymchaks Artists from New York City High School of Art and Design alumni Mandatory Palestine emigrants to the United States People from Brownsville, Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) alumni Film directors from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Inkpot Award winners Famous Studios people	false	[ "Coonskin may refer to:\n\n The skin of a raccoon\n Coonskin cap, a type of hat\n Coonskin (film), a 1975 animated film by Ralph Bakshi", "A coonskin cap is a hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon. The original coonskin cap consisted of the entire skin of the raccoon including its head and tail. Beginning as traditional Native American headgear, coonskin caps became associated with American frontiersmen of the 18th and 19th centuries, and were highly popular among boys in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia in the 1950s.\n\nOrigin\nCoonskin caps were originally popular Native American article of clothing. With much of the land along the Eastern Seaboard already settled, immigrants from Germany, Scotland and Ireland (considered too 'rough' for the coastal towns by many) ventured into the forested and mountainous Appalachian region. These groups lived a subsistence lifestyle and often interacted with Native Americans in the area which included adopting some of their customs and dress. \n\nThe coonskin cap quickly became a part of the iconic image associated with American frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Boone did not actually wear coonskin caps, which he disliked, and instead wore felt hats, but explorer Meriwether Lewis wore a coonskin cap during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Joseph L. Meek wore the coonskin cap in the mountains.\n\nAn account of actor Noah Ludlow introducing the popular song \"The Hunters of Kentucky\" while wearing a coonskin cap is shown to be spurious in Ludlow's autobiography. Ludlow recounted that initial performance of 1822: \n\nAs soon as the comedy of the night was over, I dressed myself in a buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins, which I borrowed off a river man, and with moccasins on my feet and an old slouched hat on my head, and a rifle on my shoulder, I presented myself before the audience.\"\n\n20th century popularity\n\nEstes Kefauver\nPolitician Estes Kefauver of Tennessee adopted the coonskin cap as a personal trademark during his successful 1948 campaign for election to the United States Senate. Tennessee political boss E. H. Crump had published advertisements accusing Kefauver of being a raccoon-like Communist puppet. In response, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap during a speech in Memphis, proclaiming: \"I may be a pet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon.\" He continued to use the coonskin cap as a trademark throughout his political career, which included unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, an unsuccessful campaign for the Vice Presidency as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, and successful Senatorial re-election campaigns in 1954 and 1960.\n\n1950s fad\n\nIn the 20th century, the iconic association was in large part due to Disney's television program Disneyland and the first three Davy Crockett episodes starring Fess Parker, which aired from December 1954 to February 1955. In the episodes, which once again made Crockett into one of the most popular men in the country, the frontier hero was portrayed wearing a coonskin cap. The show spawned several Disneyland Davy Crockett sequels as well as other similar shows and movies, with many of them featuring Parker as the lead actor. Parker went on to star in a Daniel Boone television series (1964-1970), again wearing a coonskin cap. \n\nCrockett's new popularity initiated a fad among boys all over the United States as well as a Davy Crockett craze in the United Kingdom. The look of the cap that was marketed to young boys was typically simplified; it was usually a faux fur lined skull cap with a raccoon tail attached. A variation was marketed to young girls as the Polly Crockett hat. It was similar in style to the boys' cap, including the long tail, but was made of all-white fur (faux or possibly rabbit). At the peak of the fad, coonskin caps sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day. By the end of the 1950s, Crockett's popularity waned and the fad slowly died out. The fad is recalled by numerous cultural references, such as the wearing of coonskin caps as part of The Junior Woodchucks uniform in Disney's Donald Duck comics. Novelist Thomas Pynchon referenced both the hat and the fashion in his novel V., where he refers to the hat as a \"bushy Freudian hermaphrodite symbol\".\n\nOther uses\nCoonskin caps are powerful cultural symbols that continued to be seen in film, television, and other contexts in the latter decades of the 20th century.\n\n In the 1964 ABC-TV series The Addams Family, Uncle Fester occasionally wore a coonskin cap dyed black with a white strip running down the middle of both the crown and the tail, suggesting that it was made from the skin of a skunk.\n In Bob Dylan's song \"Subterranean Homesick Blues,\" \"The man in the coon-skin cap / By the big pen / Wants eleven dollar bills / You only got ten.\"\n The 1983 film A Christmas Story, which features various cultural artifacts of American childhood from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, depicts a boy wearing a coonskin cap.\n The Simpsons depicts Jebediah Springfield, the early 19th-century founder of the fictional town of Springfield, in a coonskin cap.\n Florida politician Lawton Chiles put on a coonskin cap while celebrating his 1994 gubernatorial re-election victory over Republican Jeb Bush, recalling a campaign statement in which Chiles had predicted victory by saying \"the old he-coon walks just before the light of day.\"\n The Great Brain series features Parley Benson, a person who wears a coonskin cap.\n In Walt Disney's stories, the Junior Woodchucks Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck also wear coonskin caps.\n In the American History cartoon Histeria!, Kip Ling, the bow-haired girl, Froggo and Aka Pella are seen wearing coonskin caps when they sing a song about Philo Farnsworth. Toast has been seen wearing one on a bus with the Kid Chorus.\n Ferb from the American cartoon Phineas and Ferb is seen wearing a coonskin cap when he saws a log with Phineas (episode: She's the Mayor)\n Senator Jack S. Phogbound of Li'l Abner comic strip wears a coonskin cap\n Sam Shakusky. a lead character of Wes Anderson's 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom, is frequently seen wearing a coonskin cap. The film is set in 1965 and incorporates many elements of 1950s and 1960s youth culture.\n In the acclaimed Disney channel cartoon Gravity Falls, various characters can be seen wearing coonskin caps in the series, most notably Pacifica Northwest in the episode \"Irrational Treasure\".\n The Volunteer, one of the costumed mascots for the sports teams of the University of Tennessee, wears a coonskin cap and fringed buckskins, inspired by the frontier attire of many of Tennessee's volunteers in the War of 1812, the inspiration for the state and university's nickname.\n The first issue of Guardians of the Galaxy sees Rocket Raccoon pestering his teammates about the newly formed team's name. Upon suggesting \"Rocket Raccoon and His Human Hangers-On,\" Drax the Destroyer sarcastically replies \"How about 'Drax and his Coonskin Cap,' that grab you?\"\n One of the hats found in Little Nightmares II is a coonskin cap found in the Hunter's cabin.\n\nSee also\nUshanka\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Coonskin Cap\nHeight of the Craze. 1957 Wales\n\n1950s fads and trends\nHistory of fashion\n1950s fashion\nMountain men\nFur trade\nCaps\nHats\nNative American clothing\nWestern wear\nHudson's Bay Company\nDavy Crockett\nAmerican fashion\nCanadian fashion\nRaccoons in popular culture" ]
[ "Ralph Bakshi", "Coonskin (1973-1975)", "Did anyone protest the Coonskin film?", "I don't know." ]	C_cc037de80dfe462eb3e88e6cd11ee43d_1	what group of people protested the film Coonskin, because of racism?	2	What group of people protested the Ralph Bakshi film Coonskin, because of racism?	Ralph Bakshi	In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form--cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated--if not the box office obstacles--seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. CANNOTANSWER	reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner	Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to animator, and then director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and is the most successful independent animated feature of all time. Over the next 11 years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews, consequently being his last theatrical feature-length film to date. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997). During the 2000s, he focused largely on fine art and painting, and in 2003, co-founded the Bakshi School of Animation with his son Eddie and Jess Gorell. Bakshi has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival. Early life Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them. According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails". In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!" The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events. At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning. Career Early career (1956–1968) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor. At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of Mighty Mouse Playhouse on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes in recognition of the new segment. Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs, and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Production of Mighty Heroes ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons. Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Fritz the Cat (1969–1972) In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), to which Bakshi was steadfastly opposed, having wanted to kill Fritz off to avoid further movies. After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born. Heavy Traffic (1972–1973) By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. Due to the success of Fritz the Cat, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada. Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. The New York Times Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982) After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973. An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promotion of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop. The live-action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara. Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy. As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsdays Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival. American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998. By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Fire and Ice was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan." Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at Spümcø, but nothing came from this either. Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes. During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown. On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy. The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity." As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project. Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!" Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors". In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon!: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled. Painting, teaching and new animation projects (2000–2013) Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. On December 14, 2001, he did some paintings for the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2003, he appeared as the Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" of John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts, Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. Last Days of Coney Island (2013–2016) In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film, Last Days of Coney Island. Actor Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Last Days of Coney Island was released on Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on YouTube on 13 October 2016. Post-animation (2015–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. Accolades In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival the same year he began teaching an animation class in New Mexico - this became The Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning, which is run by Ralph's son Edward and his partner Jess Gorell. The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation. In the 1980s and 1990s he served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute. In 2021, Ralph Bakshi won the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award for his animation career and the impact of his films. Legacy The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. His rotoscoping techniques in Lord of the Rings inspired the animation rotoscoping techniques of the independent film The Spine of Night in which the animator developed his own rotoscope style by watching behind-the-scenes footage of Bakshi's warehouse and reverse-engineering it. Billie Eilish had the idea for an animated version of herself for her in the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (which is a promotion for the album of the same name) and suggested to director Patrick Osborne that the character should have a 1980s look and rotoscope-ish animation. Eilish referenced the works of Bakshi and animator Richard Williams to him. Gore Verbinski commented about Bakshi and showed that he was inspired by him during an interview in The Hollywood Reporter for his first animated movie, Rango, saying: "What happened to the Ralph Bakshis of the world? We're all sitting here talking family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can't articulate what." On January 12, 2014, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, there was a special screening of Bakshi's film American Pop with actors Ron Thompson and Mews Small in attendance, it was the first time lead actor Ron Thompson had ever introduced the film before a live audience. At the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, on March 27, 2015, there was a screening of Heavy Traffic and American Pop with Bakshi, Ron Thompson and Mews Small attending. Fritz the Cat has also been called an animated art film. Filmography Films Television I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of the Super Hero IV Animated in conjunction with Doug Compton V Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" Releases and ratings Bibliography Ralph Bakshi: A Private selection of drawings released from the Bakshi Archives. 2018 - 2019; Book 1 (2019) Ralph Bakshi: No Rhyme or Reason; Book 2 (2020) See also Heavy Metal Ron Thompson John Kricfalusi Katsuhiro Otomo Rock & Rule Independent animation New Hollywood Notes References External links Official page filmography Archived 'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung interview at PopMatters Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi, Lessons in Artistry, Rebellion and Success a profile at AgentPalmer.com 1938 births American animators American comic strip cartoonists American experimental filmmakers American film producers American animated film producers American storyboard artists American television directors Television producers from New York City American television writers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male writers American male screenwriters American male voice actors American animated film directors American people of Palestinian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists American satirists Jews in Mandatory Palestine Living people American male television writers People from Haifa Terrytoons people Underground cartoonists American voice directors Krymchaks Artists from New York City High School of Art and Design alumni Mandatory Palestine emigrants to the United States People from Brownsville, Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) alumni Film directors from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Inkpot Award winners Famous Studios people	true	[ "Coonskin may refer to:\n\n The skin of a raccoon\n Coonskin cap, a type of hat\n Coonskin (film), a 1975 animated film by Ralph Bakshi", "A coonskin cap is a hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon. The original coonskin cap consisted of the entire skin of the raccoon including its head and tail. Beginning as traditional Native American headgear, coonskin caps became associated with American frontiersmen of the 18th and 19th centuries, and were highly popular among boys in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia in the 1950s.\n\nOrigin\nCoonskin caps were originally popular Native American article of clothing. With much of the land along the Eastern Seaboard already settled, immigrants from Germany, Scotland and Ireland (considered too 'rough' for the coastal towns by many) ventured into the forested and mountainous Appalachian region. These groups lived a subsistence lifestyle and often interacted with Native Americans in the area which included adopting some of their customs and dress. \n\nThe coonskin cap quickly became a part of the iconic image associated with American frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Boone did not actually wear coonskin caps, which he disliked, and instead wore felt hats, but explorer Meriwether Lewis wore a coonskin cap during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Joseph L. Meek wore the coonskin cap in the mountains.\n\nAn account of actor Noah Ludlow introducing the popular song \"The Hunters of Kentucky\" while wearing a coonskin cap is shown to be spurious in Ludlow's autobiography. Ludlow recounted that initial performance of 1822: \n\nAs soon as the comedy of the night was over, I dressed myself in a buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins, which I borrowed off a river man, and with moccasins on my feet and an old slouched hat on my head, and a rifle on my shoulder, I presented myself before the audience.\"\n\n20th century popularity\n\nEstes Kefauver\nPolitician Estes Kefauver of Tennessee adopted the coonskin cap as a personal trademark during his successful 1948 campaign for election to the United States Senate. Tennessee political boss E. H. Crump had published advertisements accusing Kefauver of being a raccoon-like Communist puppet. In response, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap during a speech in Memphis, proclaiming: \"I may be a pet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon.\" He continued to use the coonskin cap as a trademark throughout his political career, which included unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, an unsuccessful campaign for the Vice Presidency as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, and successful Senatorial re-election campaigns in 1954 and 1960.\n\n1950s fad\n\nIn the 20th century, the iconic association was in large part due to Disney's television program Disneyland and the first three Davy Crockett episodes starring Fess Parker, which aired from December 1954 to February 1955. In the episodes, which once again made Crockett into one of the most popular men in the country, the frontier hero was portrayed wearing a coonskin cap. The show spawned several Disneyland Davy Crockett sequels as well as other similar shows and movies, with many of them featuring Parker as the lead actor. Parker went on to star in a Daniel Boone television series (1964-1970), again wearing a coonskin cap. \n\nCrockett's new popularity initiated a fad among boys all over the United States as well as a Davy Crockett craze in the United Kingdom. The look of the cap that was marketed to young boys was typically simplified; it was usually a faux fur lined skull cap with a raccoon tail attached. A variation was marketed to young girls as the Polly Crockett hat. It was similar in style to the boys' cap, including the long tail, but was made of all-white fur (faux or possibly rabbit). At the peak of the fad, coonskin caps sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day. By the end of the 1950s, Crockett's popularity waned and the fad slowly died out. The fad is recalled by numerous cultural references, such as the wearing of coonskin caps as part of The Junior Woodchucks uniform in Disney's Donald Duck comics. Novelist Thomas Pynchon referenced both the hat and the fashion in his novel V., where he refers to the hat as a \"bushy Freudian hermaphrodite symbol\".\n\nOther uses\nCoonskin caps are powerful cultural symbols that continued to be seen in film, television, and other contexts in the latter decades of the 20th century.\n\n In the 1964 ABC-TV series The Addams Family, Uncle Fester occasionally wore a coonskin cap dyed black with a white strip running down the middle of both the crown and the tail, suggesting that it was made from the skin of a skunk.\n In Bob Dylan's song \"Subterranean Homesick Blues,\" \"The man in the coon-skin cap / By the big pen / Wants eleven dollar bills / You only got ten.\"\n The 1983 film A Christmas Story, which features various cultural artifacts of American childhood from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, depicts a boy wearing a coonskin cap.\n The Simpsons depicts Jebediah Springfield, the early 19th-century founder of the fictional town of Springfield, in a coonskin cap.\n Florida politician Lawton Chiles put on a coonskin cap while celebrating his 1994 gubernatorial re-election victory over Republican Jeb Bush, recalling a campaign statement in which Chiles had predicted victory by saying \"the old he-coon walks just before the light of day.\"\n The Great Brain series features Parley Benson, a person who wears a coonskin cap.\n In Walt Disney's stories, the Junior Woodchucks Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck also wear coonskin caps.\n In the American History cartoon Histeria!, Kip Ling, the bow-haired girl, Froggo and Aka Pella are seen wearing coonskin caps when they sing a song about Philo Farnsworth. Toast has been seen wearing one on a bus with the Kid Chorus.\n Ferb from the American cartoon Phineas and Ferb is seen wearing a coonskin cap when he saws a log with Phineas (episode: She's the Mayor)\n Senator Jack S. Phogbound of Li'l Abner comic strip wears a coonskin cap\n Sam Shakusky. a lead character of Wes Anderson's 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom, is frequently seen wearing a coonskin cap. The film is set in 1965 and incorporates many elements of 1950s and 1960s youth culture.\n In the acclaimed Disney channel cartoon Gravity Falls, various characters can be seen wearing coonskin caps in the series, most notably Pacifica Northwest in the episode \"Irrational Treasure\".\n The Volunteer, one of the costumed mascots for the sports teams of the University of Tennessee, wears a coonskin cap and fringed buckskins, inspired by the frontier attire of many of Tennessee's volunteers in the War of 1812, the inspiration for the state and university's nickname.\n The first issue of Guardians of the Galaxy sees Rocket Raccoon pestering his teammates about the newly formed team's name. Upon suggesting \"Rocket Raccoon and His Human Hangers-On,\" Drax the Destroyer sarcastically replies \"How about 'Drax and his Coonskin Cap,' that grab you?\"\n One of the hats found in Little Nightmares II is a coonskin cap found in the Hunter's cabin.\n\nSee also\nUshanka\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Coonskin Cap\nHeight of the Craze. 1957 Wales\n\n1950s fads and trends\nHistory of fashion\n1950s fashion\nMountain men\nFur trade\nCaps\nHats\nNative American clothing\nWestern wear\nHudson's Bay Company\nDavy Crockett\nAmerican fashion\nCanadian fashion\nRaccoons in popular culture" ]
[ "Ralph Bakshi", "Coonskin (1973-1975)", "Did anyone protest the Coonskin film?", "I don't know.", "what group of people protested the film Coonskin, because of racism?", "reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" ]	C_cc037de80dfe462eb3e88e6cd11ee43d_1	What type of film is Coonskin advertised as?	3	What type of film is Coonskin by Ralph Bakshi advertised as?	Ralph Bakshi	In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form--cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated--if not the box office obstacles--seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. CANNOTANSWER	advertised as an exploitation film,	Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to animator, and then director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and is the most successful independent animated feature of all time. Over the next 11 years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews, consequently being his last theatrical feature-length film to date. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997). During the 2000s, he focused largely on fine art and painting, and in 2003, co-founded the Bakshi School of Animation with his son Eddie and Jess Gorell. Bakshi has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival. Early life Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them. According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails". In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!" The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events. At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning. Career Early career (1956–1968) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor. At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of Mighty Mouse Playhouse on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes in recognition of the new segment. Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs, and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Production of Mighty Heroes ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons. Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Fritz the Cat (1969–1972) In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), to which Bakshi was steadfastly opposed, having wanted to kill Fritz off to avoid further movies. After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born. Heavy Traffic (1972–1973) By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. Due to the success of Fritz the Cat, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada. Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. The New York Times Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982) After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973. An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promotion of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop. The live-action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara. Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy. As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsdays Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival. American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998. By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Fire and Ice was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan." Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at Spümcø, but nothing came from this either. Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes. During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown. On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy. The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity." As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project. Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!" Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors". In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon!: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled. Painting, teaching and new animation projects (2000–2013) Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. On December 14, 2001, he did some paintings for the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2003, he appeared as the Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" of John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts, Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. Last Days of Coney Island (2013–2016) In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film, Last Days of Coney Island. Actor Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Last Days of Coney Island was released on Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on YouTube on 13 October 2016. Post-animation (2015–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. Accolades In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival the same year he began teaching an animation class in New Mexico - this became The Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning, which is run by Ralph's son Edward and his partner Jess Gorell. The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation. In the 1980s and 1990s he served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute. In 2021, Ralph Bakshi won the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award for his animation career and the impact of his films. Legacy The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. His rotoscoping techniques in Lord of the Rings inspired the animation rotoscoping techniques of the independent film The Spine of Night in which the animator developed his own rotoscope style by watching behind-the-scenes footage of Bakshi's warehouse and reverse-engineering it. Billie Eilish had the idea for an animated version of herself for her in the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (which is a promotion for the album of the same name) and suggested to director Patrick Osborne that the character should have a 1980s look and rotoscope-ish animation. Eilish referenced the works of Bakshi and animator Richard Williams to him. Gore Verbinski commented about Bakshi and showed that he was inspired by him during an interview in The Hollywood Reporter for his first animated movie, Rango, saying: "What happened to the Ralph Bakshis of the world? We're all sitting here talking family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can't articulate what." On January 12, 2014, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, there was a special screening of Bakshi's film American Pop with actors Ron Thompson and Mews Small in attendance, it was the first time lead actor Ron Thompson had ever introduced the film before a live audience. At the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, on March 27, 2015, there was a screening of Heavy Traffic and American Pop with Bakshi, Ron Thompson and Mews Small attending. Fritz the Cat has also been called an animated art film. Filmography Films Television I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of the Super Hero IV Animated in conjunction with Doug Compton V Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" Releases and ratings Bibliography Ralph Bakshi: A Private selection of drawings released from the Bakshi Archives. 2018 - 2019; Book 1 (2019) Ralph Bakshi: No Rhyme or Reason; Book 2 (2020) See also Heavy Metal Ron Thompson John Kricfalusi Katsuhiro Otomo Rock & Rule Independent animation New Hollywood Notes References External links Official page filmography Archived 'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung interview at PopMatters Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi, Lessons in Artistry, Rebellion and Success a profile at AgentPalmer.com 1938 births American animators American comic strip cartoonists American experimental filmmakers American film producers American animated film producers American storyboard artists American television directors Television producers from New York City American television writers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male writers American male screenwriters American male voice actors American animated film directors American people of Palestinian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists American satirists Jews in Mandatory Palestine Living people American male television writers People from Haifa Terrytoons people Underground cartoonists American voice directors Krymchaks Artists from New York City High School of Art and Design alumni Mandatory Palestine emigrants to the United States People from Brownsville, Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) alumni Film directors from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Inkpot Award winners Famous Studios people	true	[ "A coonskin cap is a hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon. The original coonskin cap consisted of the entire skin of the raccoon including its head and tail. Beginning as traditional Native American headgear, coonskin caps became associated with American frontiersmen of the 18th and 19th centuries, and were highly popular among boys in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia in the 1950s.\n\nOrigin\nCoonskin caps were originally popular Native American article of clothing. With much of the land along the Eastern Seaboard already settled, immigrants from Germany, Scotland and Ireland (considered too 'rough' for the coastal towns by many) ventured into the forested and mountainous Appalachian region. These groups lived a subsistence lifestyle and often interacted with Native Americans in the area which included adopting some of their customs and dress. \n\nThe coonskin cap quickly became a part of the iconic image associated with American frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Boone did not actually wear coonskin caps, which he disliked, and instead wore felt hats, but explorer Meriwether Lewis wore a coonskin cap during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Joseph L. Meek wore the coonskin cap in the mountains.\n\nAn account of actor Noah Ludlow introducing the popular song \"The Hunters of Kentucky\" while wearing a coonskin cap is shown to be spurious in Ludlow's autobiography. Ludlow recounted that initial performance of 1822: \n\nAs soon as the comedy of the night was over, I dressed myself in a buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins, which I borrowed off a river man, and with moccasins on my feet and an old slouched hat on my head, and a rifle on my shoulder, I presented myself before the audience.\"\n\n20th century popularity\n\nEstes Kefauver\nPolitician Estes Kefauver of Tennessee adopted the coonskin cap as a personal trademark during his successful 1948 campaign for election to the United States Senate. Tennessee political boss E. H. Crump had published advertisements accusing Kefauver of being a raccoon-like Communist puppet. In response, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap during a speech in Memphis, proclaiming: \"I may be a pet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon.\" He continued to use the coonskin cap as a trademark throughout his political career, which included unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, an unsuccessful campaign for the Vice Presidency as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, and successful Senatorial re-election campaigns in 1954 and 1960.\n\n1950s fad\n\nIn the 20th century, the iconic association was in large part due to Disney's television program Disneyland and the first three Davy Crockett episodes starring Fess Parker, which aired from December 1954 to February 1955. In the episodes, which once again made Crockett into one of the most popular men in the country, the frontier hero was portrayed wearing a coonskin cap. The show spawned several Disneyland Davy Crockett sequels as well as other similar shows and movies, with many of them featuring Parker as the lead actor. Parker went on to star in a Daniel Boone television series (1964-1970), again wearing a coonskin cap. \n\nCrockett's new popularity initiated a fad among boys all over the United States as well as a Davy Crockett craze in the United Kingdom. The look of the cap that was marketed to young boys was typically simplified; it was usually a faux fur lined skull cap with a raccoon tail attached. A variation was marketed to young girls as the Polly Crockett hat. It was similar in style to the boys' cap, including the long tail, but was made of all-white fur (faux or possibly rabbit). At the peak of the fad, coonskin caps sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day. By the end of the 1950s, Crockett's popularity waned and the fad slowly died out. The fad is recalled by numerous cultural references, such as the wearing of coonskin caps as part of The Junior Woodchucks uniform in Disney's Donald Duck comics. Novelist Thomas Pynchon referenced both the hat and the fashion in his novel V., where he refers to the hat as a \"bushy Freudian hermaphrodite symbol\".\n\nOther uses\nCoonskin caps are powerful cultural symbols that continued to be seen in film, television, and other contexts in the latter decades of the 20th century.\n\n In the 1964 ABC-TV series The Addams Family, Uncle Fester occasionally wore a coonskin cap dyed black with a white strip running down the middle of both the crown and the tail, suggesting that it was made from the skin of a skunk.\n In Bob Dylan's song \"Subterranean Homesick Blues,\" \"The man in the coon-skin cap / By the big pen / Wants eleven dollar bills / You only got ten.\"\n The 1983 film A Christmas Story, which features various cultural artifacts of American childhood from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, depicts a boy wearing a coonskin cap.\n The Simpsons depicts Jebediah Springfield, the early 19th-century founder of the fictional town of Springfield, in a coonskin cap.\n Florida politician Lawton Chiles put on a coonskin cap while celebrating his 1994 gubernatorial re-election victory over Republican Jeb Bush, recalling a campaign statement in which Chiles had predicted victory by saying \"the old he-coon walks just before the light of day.\"\n The Great Brain series features Parley Benson, a person who wears a coonskin cap.\n In Walt Disney's stories, the Junior Woodchucks Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck also wear coonskin caps.\n In the American History cartoon Histeria!, Kip Ling, the bow-haired girl, Froggo and Aka Pella are seen wearing coonskin caps when they sing a song about Philo Farnsworth. Toast has been seen wearing one on a bus with the Kid Chorus.\n Ferb from the American cartoon Phineas and Ferb is seen wearing a coonskin cap when he saws a log with Phineas (episode: She's the Mayor)\n Senator Jack S. Phogbound of Li'l Abner comic strip wears a coonskin cap\n Sam Shakusky. a lead character of Wes Anderson's 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom, is frequently seen wearing a coonskin cap. The film is set in 1965 and incorporates many elements of 1950s and 1960s youth culture.\n In the acclaimed Disney channel cartoon Gravity Falls, various characters can be seen wearing coonskin caps in the series, most notably Pacifica Northwest in the episode \"Irrational Treasure\".\n The Volunteer, one of the costumed mascots for the sports teams of the University of Tennessee, wears a coonskin cap and fringed buckskins, inspired by the frontier attire of many of Tennessee's volunteers in the War of 1812, the inspiration for the state and university's nickname.\n The first issue of Guardians of the Galaxy sees Rocket Raccoon pestering his teammates about the newly formed team's name. Upon suggesting \"Rocket Raccoon and His Human Hangers-On,\" Drax the Destroyer sarcastically replies \"How about 'Drax and his Coonskin Cap,' that grab you?\"\n One of the hats found in Little Nightmares II is a coonskin cap found in the Hunter's cabin.\n\nSee also\nUshanka\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Coonskin Cap\nHeight of the Craze. 1957 Wales\n\n1950s fads and trends\nHistory of fashion\n1950s fashion\nMountain men\nFur trade\nCaps\nHats\nNative American clothing\nWestern wear\nHudson's Bay Company\nDavy Crockett\nAmerican fashion\nCanadian fashion\nRaccoons in popular culture", "Coonskin may refer to:\n\n The skin of a raccoon\n Coonskin cap, a type of hat\n Coonskin (film), a 1975 animated film by Ralph Bakshi" ]
[ "Ralph Bakshi", "Coonskin (1973-1975)", "Did anyone protest the Coonskin film?", "I don't know.", "what group of people protested the film Coonskin, because of racism?", "reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner", "What type of film is Coonskin advertised as?", "advertised as an exploitation film," ]	C_cc037de80dfe462eb3e88e6cd11ee43d_1	What type of film reviews did Coonskin receive?	4	What type of film reviews did Coonskin by Ralph Bakshi receive?	Ralph Bakshi	In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form--cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated--if not the box office obstacles--seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. CANNOTANSWER	positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere.	Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to animator, and then director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and is the most successful independent animated feature of all time. Over the next 11 years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews, consequently being his last theatrical feature-length film to date. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997). During the 2000s, he focused largely on fine art and painting, and in 2003, co-founded the Bakshi School of Animation with his son Eddie and Jess Gorell. Bakshi has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival. Early life Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them. According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails". In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!" The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events. At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning. Career Early career (1956–1968) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor. At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of Mighty Mouse Playhouse on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes in recognition of the new segment. Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs, and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Production of Mighty Heroes ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons. Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Fritz the Cat (1969–1972) In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), to which Bakshi was steadfastly opposed, having wanted to kill Fritz off to avoid further movies. After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born. Heavy Traffic (1972–1973) By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. Due to the success of Fritz the Cat, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada. Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. The New York Times Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982) After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973. An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promotion of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop. The live-action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara. Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy. As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsdays Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival. American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998. By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Fire and Ice was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan." Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at Spümcø, but nothing came from this either. Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes. During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown. On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy. The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity." As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project. Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!" Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors". In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon!: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled. Painting, teaching and new animation projects (2000–2013) Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. On December 14, 2001, he did some paintings for the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2003, he appeared as the Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" of John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts, Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. Last Days of Coney Island (2013–2016) In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film, Last Days of Coney Island. Actor Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Last Days of Coney Island was released on Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on YouTube on 13 October 2016. Post-animation (2015–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. Accolades In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival the same year he began teaching an animation class in New Mexico - this became The Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning, which is run by Ralph's son Edward and his partner Jess Gorell. The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation. In the 1980s and 1990s he served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute. In 2021, Ralph Bakshi won the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award for his animation career and the impact of his films. Legacy The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. His rotoscoping techniques in Lord of the Rings inspired the animation rotoscoping techniques of the independent film The Spine of Night in which the animator developed his own rotoscope style by watching behind-the-scenes footage of Bakshi's warehouse and reverse-engineering it. Billie Eilish had the idea for an animated version of herself for her in the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (which is a promotion for the album of the same name) and suggested to director Patrick Osborne that the character should have a 1980s look and rotoscope-ish animation. Eilish referenced the works of Bakshi and animator Richard Williams to him. Gore Verbinski commented about Bakshi and showed that he was inspired by him during an interview in The Hollywood Reporter for his first animated movie, Rango, saying: "What happened to the Ralph Bakshis of the world? We're all sitting here talking family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can't articulate what." On January 12, 2014, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, there was a special screening of Bakshi's film American Pop with actors Ron Thompson and Mews Small in attendance, it was the first time lead actor Ron Thompson had ever introduced the film before a live audience. At the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, on March 27, 2015, there was a screening of Heavy Traffic and American Pop with Bakshi, Ron Thompson and Mews Small attending. Fritz the Cat has also been called an animated art film. Filmography Films Television I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of the Super Hero IV Animated in conjunction with Doug Compton V Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" Releases and ratings Bibliography Ralph Bakshi: A Private selection of drawings released from the Bakshi Archives. 2018 - 2019; Book 1 (2019) Ralph Bakshi: No Rhyme or Reason; Book 2 (2020) See also Heavy Metal Ron Thompson John Kricfalusi Katsuhiro Otomo Rock & Rule Independent animation New Hollywood Notes References External links Official page filmography Archived 'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung interview at PopMatters Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi, Lessons in Artistry, Rebellion and Success a profile at AgentPalmer.com 1938 births American animators American comic strip cartoonists American experimental filmmakers American film producers American animated film producers American storyboard artists American television directors Television producers from New York City American television writers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male writers American male screenwriters American male voice actors American animated film directors American people of Palestinian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists American satirists Jews in Mandatory Palestine Living people American male television writers People from Haifa Terrytoons people Underground cartoonists American voice directors Krymchaks Artists from New York City High School of Art and Design alumni Mandatory Palestine emigrants to the United States People from Brownsville, Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) alumni Film directors from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Inkpot Award winners Famous Studios people	false	[ "Coonskin may refer to:\n\n The skin of a raccoon\n Coonskin cap, a type of hat\n Coonskin (film), a 1975 animated film by Ralph Bakshi", "A coonskin cap is a hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon. The original coonskin cap consisted of the entire skin of the raccoon including its head and tail. Beginning as traditional Native American headgear, coonskin caps became associated with American frontiersmen of the 18th and 19th centuries, and were highly popular among boys in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia in the 1950s.\n\nOrigin\nCoonskin caps were originally popular Native American article of clothing. With much of the land along the Eastern Seaboard already settled, immigrants from Germany, Scotland and Ireland (considered too 'rough' for the coastal towns by many) ventured into the forested and mountainous Appalachian region. These groups lived a subsistence lifestyle and often interacted with Native Americans in the area which included adopting some of their customs and dress. \n\nThe coonskin cap quickly became a part of the iconic image associated with American frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Boone did not actually wear coonskin caps, which he disliked, and instead wore felt hats, but explorer Meriwether Lewis wore a coonskin cap during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Joseph L. Meek wore the coonskin cap in the mountains.\n\nAn account of actor Noah Ludlow introducing the popular song \"The Hunters of Kentucky\" while wearing a coonskin cap is shown to be spurious in Ludlow's autobiography. Ludlow recounted that initial performance of 1822: \n\nAs soon as the comedy of the night was over, I dressed myself in a buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins, which I borrowed off a river man, and with moccasins on my feet and an old slouched hat on my head, and a rifle on my shoulder, I presented myself before the audience.\"\n\n20th century popularity\n\nEstes Kefauver\nPolitician Estes Kefauver of Tennessee adopted the coonskin cap as a personal trademark during his successful 1948 campaign for election to the United States Senate. Tennessee political boss E. H. Crump had published advertisements accusing Kefauver of being a raccoon-like Communist puppet. In response, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap during a speech in Memphis, proclaiming: \"I may be a pet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon.\" He continued to use the coonskin cap as a trademark throughout his political career, which included unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, an unsuccessful campaign for the Vice Presidency as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, and successful Senatorial re-election campaigns in 1954 and 1960.\n\n1950s fad\n\nIn the 20th century, the iconic association was in large part due to Disney's television program Disneyland and the first three Davy Crockett episodes starring Fess Parker, which aired from December 1954 to February 1955. In the episodes, which once again made Crockett into one of the most popular men in the country, the frontier hero was portrayed wearing a coonskin cap. The show spawned several Disneyland Davy Crockett sequels as well as other similar shows and movies, with many of them featuring Parker as the lead actor. Parker went on to star in a Daniel Boone television series (1964-1970), again wearing a coonskin cap. \n\nCrockett's new popularity initiated a fad among boys all over the United States as well as a Davy Crockett craze in the United Kingdom. The look of the cap that was marketed to young boys was typically simplified; it was usually a faux fur lined skull cap with a raccoon tail attached. A variation was marketed to young girls as the Polly Crockett hat. It was similar in style to the boys' cap, including the long tail, but was made of all-white fur (faux or possibly rabbit). At the peak of the fad, coonskin caps sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day. By the end of the 1950s, Crockett's popularity waned and the fad slowly died out. The fad is recalled by numerous cultural references, such as the wearing of coonskin caps as part of The Junior Woodchucks uniform in Disney's Donald Duck comics. Novelist Thomas Pynchon referenced both the hat and the fashion in his novel V., where he refers to the hat as a \"bushy Freudian hermaphrodite symbol\".\n\nOther uses\nCoonskin caps are powerful cultural symbols that continued to be seen in film, television, and other contexts in the latter decades of the 20th century.\n\n In the 1964 ABC-TV series The Addams Family, Uncle Fester occasionally wore a coonskin cap dyed black with a white strip running down the middle of both the crown and the tail, suggesting that it was made from the skin of a skunk.\n In Bob Dylan's song \"Subterranean Homesick Blues,\" \"The man in the coon-skin cap / By the big pen / Wants eleven dollar bills / You only got ten.\"\n The 1983 film A Christmas Story, which features various cultural artifacts of American childhood from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, depicts a boy wearing a coonskin cap.\n The Simpsons depicts Jebediah Springfield, the early 19th-century founder of the fictional town of Springfield, in a coonskin cap.\n Florida politician Lawton Chiles put on a coonskin cap while celebrating his 1994 gubernatorial re-election victory over Republican Jeb Bush, recalling a campaign statement in which Chiles had predicted victory by saying \"the old he-coon walks just before the light of day.\"\n The Great Brain series features Parley Benson, a person who wears a coonskin cap.\n In Walt Disney's stories, the Junior Woodchucks Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck also wear coonskin caps.\n In the American History cartoon Histeria!, Kip Ling, the bow-haired girl, Froggo and Aka Pella are seen wearing coonskin caps when they sing a song about Philo Farnsworth. Toast has been seen wearing one on a bus with the Kid Chorus.\n Ferb from the American cartoon Phineas and Ferb is seen wearing a coonskin cap when he saws a log with Phineas (episode: She's the Mayor)\n Senator Jack S. Phogbound of Li'l Abner comic strip wears a coonskin cap\n Sam Shakusky. a lead character of Wes Anderson's 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom, is frequently seen wearing a coonskin cap. The film is set in 1965 and incorporates many elements of 1950s and 1960s youth culture.\n In the acclaimed Disney channel cartoon Gravity Falls, various characters can be seen wearing coonskin caps in the series, most notably Pacifica Northwest in the episode \"Irrational Treasure\".\n The Volunteer, one of the costumed mascots for the sports teams of the University of Tennessee, wears a coonskin cap and fringed buckskins, inspired by the frontier attire of many of Tennessee's volunteers in the War of 1812, the inspiration for the state and university's nickname.\n The first issue of Guardians of the Galaxy sees Rocket Raccoon pestering his teammates about the newly formed team's name. Upon suggesting \"Rocket Raccoon and His Human Hangers-On,\" Drax the Destroyer sarcastically replies \"How about 'Drax and his Coonskin Cap,' that grab you?\"\n One of the hats found in Little Nightmares II is a coonskin cap found in the Hunter's cabin.\n\nSee also\nUshanka\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Coonskin Cap\nHeight of the Craze. 1957 Wales\n\n1950s fads and trends\nHistory of fashion\n1950s fashion\nMountain men\nFur trade\nCaps\nHats\nNative American clothing\nWestern wear\nHudson's Bay Company\nDavy Crockett\nAmerican fashion\nCanadian fashion\nRaccoons in popular culture" ]
[ "Ralph Bakshi", "Coonskin (1973-1975)", "Did anyone protest the Coonskin film?", "I don't know.", "what group of people protested the film Coonskin, because of racism?", "reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner", "What type of film is Coonskin advertised as?", "advertised as an exploitation film,", "What type of film reviews did Coonskin receive?", "positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere." ]	C_cc037de80dfe462eb3e88e6cd11ee43d_1	What did Bashki think of this film?	5	What did Ralph Bashki think of his film Coonskin?	Ralph Bakshi	In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form--cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated--if not the box office obstacles--seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. CANNOTANSWER	Bakshi called Coonskin his best film.	Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to animator, and then director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and is the most successful independent animated feature of all time. Over the next 11 years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews, consequently being his last theatrical feature-length film to date. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997). During the 2000s, he focused largely on fine art and painting, and in 2003, co-founded the Bakshi School of Animation with his son Eddie and Jess Gorell. Bakshi has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival. Early life Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them. According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails". In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!" The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events. At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning. Career Early career (1956–1968) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor. At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of Mighty Mouse Playhouse on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes in recognition of the new segment. Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs, and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Production of Mighty Heroes ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons. Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Fritz the Cat (1969–1972) In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), to which Bakshi was steadfastly opposed, having wanted to kill Fritz off to avoid further movies. After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born. Heavy Traffic (1972–1973) By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. Due to the success of Fritz the Cat, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada. Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. The New York Times Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982) After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973. An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promotion of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop. The live-action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara. Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy. As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsdays Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival. American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998. By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Fire and Ice was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan." Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at Spümcø, but nothing came from this either. Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes. During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown. On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy. The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity." As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project. Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!" Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors". In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon!: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled. Painting, teaching and new animation projects (2000–2013) Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. On December 14, 2001, he did some paintings for the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2003, he appeared as the Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" of John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts, Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. Last Days of Coney Island (2013–2016) In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film, Last Days of Coney Island. Actor Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Last Days of Coney Island was released on Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on YouTube on 13 October 2016. Post-animation (2015–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. Accolades In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival the same year he began teaching an animation class in New Mexico - this became The Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning, which is run by Ralph's son Edward and his partner Jess Gorell. The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation. In the 1980s and 1990s he served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute. In 2021, Ralph Bakshi won the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award for his animation career and the impact of his films. Legacy The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. His rotoscoping techniques in Lord of the Rings inspired the animation rotoscoping techniques of the independent film The Spine of Night in which the animator developed his own rotoscope style by watching behind-the-scenes footage of Bakshi's warehouse and reverse-engineering it. Billie Eilish had the idea for an animated version of herself for her in the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (which is a promotion for the album of the same name) and suggested to director Patrick Osborne that the character should have a 1980s look and rotoscope-ish animation. Eilish referenced the works of Bakshi and animator Richard Williams to him. Gore Verbinski commented about Bakshi and showed that he was inspired by him during an interview in The Hollywood Reporter for his first animated movie, Rango, saying: "What happened to the Ralph Bakshis of the world? We're all sitting here talking family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can't articulate what." On January 12, 2014, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, there was a special screening of Bakshi's film American Pop with actors Ron Thompson and Mews Small in attendance, it was the first time lead actor Ron Thompson had ever introduced the film before a live audience. At the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, on March 27, 2015, there was a screening of Heavy Traffic and American Pop with Bakshi, Ron Thompson and Mews Small attending. Fritz the Cat has also been called an animated art film. Filmography Films Television I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of the Super Hero IV Animated in conjunction with Doug Compton V Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" Releases and ratings Bibliography Ralph Bakshi: A Private selection of drawings released from the Bakshi Archives. 2018 - 2019; Book 1 (2019) Ralph Bakshi: No Rhyme or Reason; Book 2 (2020) See also Heavy Metal Ron Thompson John Kricfalusi Katsuhiro Otomo Rock & Rule Independent animation New Hollywood Notes References External links Official page filmography Archived 'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung interview at PopMatters Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi, Lessons in Artistry, Rebellion and Success a profile at AgentPalmer.com 1938 births American animators American comic strip cartoonists American experimental filmmakers American film producers American animated film producers American storyboard artists American television directors Television producers from New York City American television writers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male writers American male screenwriters American male voice actors American animated film directors American people of Palestinian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists American satirists Jews in Mandatory Palestine Living people American male television writers People from Haifa Terrytoons people Underground cartoonists American voice directors Krymchaks Artists from New York City High School of Art and Design alumni Mandatory Palestine emigrants to the United States People from Brownsville, Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) alumni Film directors from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Inkpot Award winners Famous Studios people	true	[ "Municipalities () are the basic administrative divisions of Albania. Prior to 2015, there were two types of municipalities in Albania: municipalities with an urban character called bashki, and municipalities with a rural character called komunë (commune). Municipalities are all divided into at least two \"administrative units\" (njësi administrative), which are sometimes referred to as \"municipal units\" or \"units of local governance\". Administrative units are composed of one or more cities, villages, or neighbourhoods and constitute the third- and final-level administrative divisions of Albania.\n\nIn 2014, the government introduced a new administrative scheme that was implemented in June 2015 with local elections, whereby municipalities were reduced to 61 in total and rural komuna were abolished. Most defunct municipalities are now administrative units and may also be cities, villages, or neighbourhoods.\n\nList\n\nReferences \n\n \nGovernment of Albania\nAlbania geography-related lists\nAlbania\nSubdivisions of Albania\nMunicipalities, Albania", "Beyesh () is a Bashkir folk song. The song describes the batyr (a Bashki folk hero) Beyesh, who fought for the people's rights and hid from the authorities.\n\nLegend \nAccording to legend, in the mid-19th century, when the Bashkirs were transferred from a civilian to a military caste, they took part in the wars and campaigns in Russia, engaged in the construction of fortifications and urban amenities, and assumed provincial Zemstvo duties. Not wanting to bear the weight of military service, Bashkirs deserted. Beiesh and his companions were the runaway soldiers.\n\nTo capture them, detachments were formed, but Beieish and mates Abubakir Abdakov, Kunakbay Abdrahimov, Rahmatullah Barracks, Kurman Ilbakov, Kutlusha Murzagulov eluded capture for 10 years, from 1838 to 1848. Biish stayed in Burzyan, Tamyanskoy parishes in the area and Kaginskogo Avzyan-Petrovsky works inVerhneuralskiy County. In 1848, a detachment Skoryatinova on the trail of Biisha after clashes with Biish and his supporters captured them. In honor of this capture, the Biisha Skoryatinov police captain was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir IV degree.\n\nThe song resembled those of Salavat Yulaev.\n\nReferences\n\nBashkir folk songs\nYear of song unknown\n19th-century songs\nSongwriter unknown" ]
[ "Ralph Bakshi", "Coonskin (1973-1975)", "Did anyone protest the Coonskin film?", "I don't know.", "what group of people protested the film Coonskin, because of racism?", "reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner", "What type of film is Coonskin advertised as?", "advertised as an exploitation film,", "What type of film reviews did Coonskin receive?", "positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere.", "What did Bashki think of this film?", "Bakshi called Coonskin his best film." ]	C_cc037de80dfe462eb3e88e6cd11ee43d_1	Who were the animators on the film?	6	Who were the animators on the Ralph Bakshi film Coonskin?	Ralph Bakshi	In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. The New York Times' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form--cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated--if not the box office obstacles--seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. CANNOTANSWER	Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity.	Ralph Bakshi (; born October 29, 1938) is an American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator. Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to animator, and then director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, Fritz the Cat, released in 1972. It was based on the comic strip by Robert Crumb and was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and is the most successful independent animated feature of all time. Over the next 11 years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for such films as Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which ran for two years. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed Cool World (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews, consequently being his last theatrical feature-length film to date. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film Cool and the Crazy (1994) and the anthology series Spicy City (1997). During the 2000s, he focused largely on fine art and painting, and in 2003, co-founded the Bakshi School of Animation with his son Eddie and Jess Gorell. Bakshi has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for The Lord of the Rings at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival. Early life Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), to a Krymchak Jewish family. In 1939, his family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to find them. According to an interview in 2009, Ralph said he was very poor and the walls of his neighborhood were constantly repainted. He liked the feeling when he looked out the window and saw the sun as a little boy, and whenever he would walk out in the streets, someone would break the wooden crates, that were filled with food, in the push carts open. Ralph says this in the interview, "And the push carts were wood, and most of the buildings were made out of old wood, going back to the turn of the century, and they were repainted a lot but the paint was faded by, you know the hundred years of snow and rain, repainted and faded again." Bakshi loved the faded colors, the nails, the wooden crates, and he would build his own toys from the wood. Ralph recalls, "I had a great feeling with wood, cement, and nails". In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, DC, in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!" The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, but a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white, let alone Jewish, student was attending a black school, the police removed Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events. At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide to Cartooning at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenaged years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning. Career Early career (1956–1968) When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, so promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped 10 cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman, and Johnnie Gentilella. Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew Dum Dum and Dee Dee, a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips Bonefoot and Fudge, which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and Junktown, which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes - a hat floating on water and a running Deputy Dawg, the lead character of a Terrytoons' series then being shown on CBS. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor. At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series Sad Cat. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Other animation studios, such as Hanna-Barbera, were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called The Mighty Heroes. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could, and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director. It would appear as a segment of Mighty Mouse Playhouse on the network's 1966–67 Saturday-morning schedule; the series was renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes in recognition of the new segment. Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over The Mighty Heroes, and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing, and voice acting. Although the series' first 20 segments were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called Tee-Witt, with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago, and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on Tee-Witt, its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film Wizards. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic-book and pulp-fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote, and designed four short films at Paramount: The Fuz, Mini-Squirts, Marvin Digs, and Mouse Trek. Marvin Digs, which Bakshi conceived as a "flower child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust". Production of Mighty Heroes ended when Bakshi left Terrytoons. Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science-fiction series Rocket Robin Hood. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard, who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours. Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on Rocket Robin Hood, and later took over the Spider-Man television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970. Fritz the Cat (1969–1972) In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience, and would likely consider it if his first film was an adaptation. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference. Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodē warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract. Crumb was subsequently hostile both to the film and Bakshi. Krantz produced a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), to which Bakshi was steadfastly opposed, having wanted to kill Fritz off to avoid further movies. After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators with whom he had worked in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti, and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex, and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown, and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue; this, too, would become a signature of Bakshi's. In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe, and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that Fritz the Cat would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating, as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising Fritz the Cat as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" Variety called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that Fritz the Cat was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." Fritz the Cat was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born. Heavy Traffic (1972–1973) By the time Fritz the Cat was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of Heavy Traffic in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat, and halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. As he continued to work on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of The Godfather. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, Heavy Traffic was rated X. Due to the success of Fritz the Cat, though, many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. Heavy Traffic was very well received by critics. Newsweek applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie, and peculiar raw beauty." The Hollywood Reporter called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of The New York Times ranked Heavy Traffic among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada. Coonskin (1973–1975) In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began the production of Harlem Nights, which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs, and profanity. Harlem Nights, based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White, and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two media could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation - slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap". Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from The Wind in the Willows were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of The Godfather." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to Coonskin No More..., and finally to Coonskin. Bakshi hired several African-American animators to work on Coonskin, including Brenda Banks, the first African-American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount cancelled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, The American Chronicles. Coonskin, advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; Playboy commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Amsterdam News (an African-American newspaper), and elsewhere. The New York Times Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined-to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". Variety called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box-office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called Coonskin his best film. Hey Good Lookin' (1973–1975/1982) After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." Hey Good Lookin' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro, and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high-school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973. An initial version of Hey Good Lookin' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promotion of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop. The live-action sequences of Hey Good Lookin' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara. Hey Good Lookin' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978) In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's Star Wars. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves. Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy. As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards to avoid conflict with Star Wars; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from Star Wars to record a voice for Wizards. Although Wizards received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character." In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to The Lord of the Rings. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film. Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints. After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on Wizards, which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for The Lord of the Rings, so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's prominence brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action Aragorn costume, which he wore while animating. Viewing The Lord of the Rings as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, The Lord of the Rings was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". Newsdays Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of New York felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. The Lord of the Rings won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival. American Pop and Fire and Ice (1979–1983) Following the production struggles of The Lord of the Rings, Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched American Pop to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. American Pop follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop and starred actor Ron Thompson in a dual lead role. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998. By 1982, fantasy films such as The Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. Fire and Ice was financed by some of American Pops investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's He-Man series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan." Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986) After production of Fire and Ice wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film Blade Runner (although he was planning a TV version of said film). During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form. Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time. Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay Bobby's Girl as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. Bobby's Girl was reworked as a potential prime time series called Suzy's in Love, but attracted no serious interest. They would try again in 2003 over at Spümcø, but nothing came from this either. Return to television (1987–1989) In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to Mighty Mouse, and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!" Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes. During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy. In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his Junktown comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of Junktown. On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of Lady and the Tramp and get the same impression. Fritz the Cat wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in Time magazine's "Best of '87" feature, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was canceled by CBS following the controversy. The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to Junktown. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, Christmas in Tattertown, in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's Imagining America anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, This Ain't Bebop, his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since Coonskin—the last real thing I did with total integrity." As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot Hound Town for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit". Besides Bakshi, sitcom alumus Rob Sternin and Prudence Fraser wrote and produced the project. Cool World, continued television projects and semi-retirement (1990–1997) In 1990, Bakshi pitched Cool World to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!" Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier Cool World. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of Cool World leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked Roger Rabbit, you'll love Cool World!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked Roger Rabbit, quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting. In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, which he retitled Cool and the Crazy. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors". In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon!: Malcom and Melvin and Babe, He Calls Me, focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, Jesus vs. Santa. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop Spicy Detective, later renamed Spicy City, an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's South Park—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, Spicy City received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled. Painting, teaching and new animation projects (2000–2013) Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. On December 14, 2001, he did some paintings for the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. He later became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting and began development on the Last Days of Coney Island film. In 2003, he appeared as the Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" of John Kricfalusi's Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards. In 2012, Bakshi began producing the short film series Bakshi Blues. The first of these shorts, Trickle Dickle Down, contains reused animation from Coonskin and criticizes 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The shorts were to focus on "old and new characters" and comment on modern-day America. Last Days of Coney Island (2013–2016) In February 2013, Bakshi launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for his latest film, Last Days of Coney Island. Actor Matthew Modine was cast in the film in February 2013 after Modine, a longtime Bakshi fan, came across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Last Days of Coney Island was released on Vimeo in 2015. Bakshi released the film for free on YouTube on 13 October 2016. Post-animation (2015–present) After he quit the animation industry, Bakshi did multiple interviews with the media and on podcasts. He continues to sell art on eBay and his website, both run by the Bakshi family. He currently sells an art series called Little Guys and Gals, which are fictional portraits of cartoon people. The series originated in November 2020 as random character sketches and officially began in January 2021, originally calling the series Little Gals and Little Guys. Bakshi appeared as a guest at a Canadian film festival which celebrates animation, SPARK Animation, which was held virtually, from October 28 to November 7, 2021. Accolades In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival the same year he began teaching an animation class in New Mexico - this became The Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning, which is run by Ralph's son Edward and his partner Jess Gorell. The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Coonskin and Fire and Ice. Fritz the Cat was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary The 100 Greatest Cartoons. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation. In the 1980s and 1990s he served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute. In 2021, Ralph Bakshi won the Animafest Zagreb Lifetime Achievement Award for his animation career and the impact of his films. Legacy The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi, a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. His rotoscoping techniques in Lord of the Rings inspired the animation rotoscoping techniques of the independent film The Spine of Night in which the animator developed his own rotoscope style by watching behind-the-scenes footage of Bakshi's warehouse and reverse-engineering it. Billie Eilish had the idea for an animated version of herself for her in the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles (which is a promotion for the album of the same name) and suggested to director Patrick Osborne that the character should have a 1980s look and rotoscope-ish animation. Eilish referenced the works of Bakshi and animator Richard Williams to him. Gore Verbinski commented about Bakshi and showed that he was inspired by him during an interview in The Hollywood Reporter for his first animated movie, Rango, saying: "What happened to the Ralph Bakshis of the world? We're all sitting here talking family entertainment. Does animation have to be family entertainment? Audiences want something new; they just can't articulate what." On January 12, 2014, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, there was a special screening of Bakshi's film American Pop with actors Ron Thompson and Mews Small in attendance, it was the first time lead actor Ron Thompson had ever introduced the film before a live audience. At the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California, on March 27, 2015, there was a screening of Heavy Traffic and American Pop with Bakshi, Ron Thompson and Mews Small attending. Fritz the Cat has also been called an animated art film. Filmography Films Television I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of the Super Hero IV Animated in conjunction with Doug Compton V Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2" Releases and ratings Bibliography Ralph Bakshi: A Private selection of drawings released from the Bakshi Archives. 2018 - 2019; Book 1 (2019) Ralph Bakshi: No Rhyme or Reason; Book 2 (2020) See also Heavy Metal Ron Thompson John Kricfalusi Katsuhiro Otomo Rock & Rule Independent animation New Hollywood Notes References External links Official page filmography Archived 'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung interview at PopMatters Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi, Lessons in Artistry, Rebellion and Success a profile at AgentPalmer.com 1938 births American animators American comic strip cartoonists American experimental filmmakers American film producers American animated film producers American storyboard artists American television directors Television producers from New York City American television writers 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male writers American male screenwriters American male voice actors American animated film directors American people of Palestinian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists American satirists Jews in Mandatory Palestine Living people American male television writers People from Haifa Terrytoons people Underground cartoonists American voice directors Krymchaks Artists from New York City High School of Art and Design alumni Mandatory Palestine emigrants to the United States People from Brownsville, Brooklyn Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) alumni Film directors from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Screenwriters from New York (state) Inkpot Award winners Famous Studios people	false	[ "Roze Stiebra (born Rozālija Stiebra on 17 March 1942) is a Latvian animator.\n\nBiography \nRoze Stiebra was born on 17 March 1942 in Riga. She graduated from the Faculty of Puppetry at the Saint Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy in 1964, and went on to work as an animator for Latvian Television (studio Telefilm-Riga 1966–1987), Riga Film Studio (1987–1990) and the animation studio Dauka (since 1991)).\n\nShe has received the Lielais Kristaps award for \"best animated film\" six times, for her films Kā es braucu Ziemeļmeitas lūkoties (1980), Kabata (1983), Skatāmpanti (1988), Ness un Nesija (1993), Pasaciņas. Miega vilcieniņš (1998), and The Unusual Rigans (2001).\n\nShe is a member of the International Animated Film Association. In 1995, she was honored with the Spīdolas Award, the highest award of the Latvian Culture Foundation. In 2005, Stiebra received the Order of the Three Stars.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n Roze Stiebra at Animator.ru\n \n\n1942 births\nLiving people\n20th-century Latvian women artists\n21st-century Latvian women artists\nLatvian animators\nSoviet animators\nLatvian animated film directors\nLatvian film directors\nLatvian women animators\nLatvian women film directors\nFilm people from Riga\nLielais Kristaps Award winners\nRussian State Institute of Performing Arts alumni", "Otmar Gutmann (24 April 1937 – 13 October 1993) was a German filmmaker who specialised in animation. He is known for creating the Swiss-British children’s stop-motion television series Pingu.\n\nHe started as an amateur in the 1960s. As a professional he only made one personal work, Aventures (1978). It was based on the piece of music by Gyorgy ligeti, he brought the sculptural universe of Lubomir Stepan to life as an exploration of human condition. In 1980, he was one of the leading animators of the plasticine characters Frédéric and Frédéri from \"Lucy the Menace of Street\". Later, in 1986, he created Pingu and eventually, it became a major success.\n\nOn 13 October 1993, Gutmann died of a heart attack while working on Pingu at age 56. He was buried at Russikon Cemetery. His company (The Pygos Group) decided to keep producing Pingu episodes with a new team of crew members. In October 2001, the company collapsed and all its assets were sold to HiT Entertainment.\n\nFilmography\nPingu (1990–2006, creator)\nAventures (1978)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1937 births\n1993 deaths\nClay animators\nGerman animated film directors\nGerman animated film producers\nTelevision people from Baden-Württemberg\nStop motion animators\nPeople from Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald" ]
[ "New Order (band)", "Movement: 1981-1982" ]	C_f4bea434299f44b4810b6d7037af7e7b_1	what was Movement?	1	what was Movement?	New Order (band)	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really - for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". CANNOTANSWER	With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation,	New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis; they were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. New Order's integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. They were the flagship band for Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub The Haçienda, and worked in long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville. While the band's early years were overshadowed by the legacy of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released successful albums such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation Substance (1987). They disbanded in 1993 to work on individual projects before reuniting in 1998. In the years since, New Order has gone through various hiatuses and personnel changes, most prominently the departure of Hook in 2007. They released their tenth studio album, Music Complete, in 2015. History Origins and formation: 1977–1980 Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis took his own life on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first American tour, and prior to the release of the band's second album, Closer. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Prior to his death, the members of Joy Division had agreed not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave. On 29 July 1980, the still unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over 20 years, is credited for having found the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. The group states that the name New Order (as was also the case with "Joy Division") does not draw a direct line to National Socialism or Fascism. The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as he could sing when he wasn't playing his guitar. They wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Her first live performance with the band occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. Movement: 1981–1982 The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really – for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984 Power, Corruption & Lies, released in May 1983, was a synthesiser-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album, although the band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12" single of all time in the UK; however, (much to the chagrin of the buying public) it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included however on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies. The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesised single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album. KROQ Los Angeles DJ Jed the Fish claims New Order had more to do with the emergence of house music than the Warehouse music of Chicago and "Frankie Knuckles and the whole so-called House music scene. Unless you were actually from regional Chicago, had you ever heard of House music until New Order? Be real, now." Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987 1985's Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss"—the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme—and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex. Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions. In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvatation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order. Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band were sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who alleged that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver. In 1990, New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion", under the ad hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was the band's sole number one UK hit. The song was originally planned to be titled "E for England", however the Football Association vetoed the title upon realising that this was a reference to ecstasy; a drug heavily associated with the Haçienda. (Allen claimed that his original draft lyrics included "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.") The song also featured chanting from members of the England team and Allen, and a guest rap from England player John Barnes. It was again produced by Stephen Hague, who the band chose to produce their next album. The band's next album Republic was shadowed by the collapse of their longtime label Factory Records. The label had been ailing due to financial difficulties, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1992. New Order never had a formal contract with Factory. Although unusual for a major group, this was Factory's standard practice until the mid-1980s. Because of this, the band, rather than Factory Records, legally owned all of their recordings. This has been cited by Wilson himself as the main reason London Records' 1992 offer to buy the ailing label fell through. Following Factory's collapse, New Order signed with London, as did Morris and Gilbert separately for their side project The Other Two, whose debut album was originally intended for release on Factory. Republic, released around the world in 1993, spawned the singles "Regret"—New Order's highest-charting single in the US—"Ruined in a Day", "World", and "Spooky". Following the release and promotion of Republic, the band put New Order on hold while focusing on side projects; with The Other Two's debut album released in 1993. In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixes of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "1963", and "Round & Round". The new versions of "True Faith" and "1963" (the latter as a more guitar-oriented version produced by Arthur Baker) were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the track listing was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of existing and newly commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc or cassette composed entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was released as a single for a third time to promote the collection. Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003 The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. Nearly five years had passed since they had last seen each other. Sumner said, "We decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out." By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year. In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival. Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and focused on more guitar oriented music. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins played guitar and sang back-up on the track "Turn My Way," and in 2001 toured with the band on dates in the UK, US, and Japan for a short period of time. Phil Cunningham (formerly of Marion) joined the band in a live capacity, deputising for Gilbert who declined to tour in favour of caring for her and Morris' children. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie provided vocals on the track "Rock the Shack". Singles from the album included "Crystal," "60 Miles an Hour" and Someone Like You." In 2002, Q featured New Order on their list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way". Both New Order and Joy Division were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, depicting the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of the Fall and former members of Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, lent a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings. The film touched on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and the Durutti Column. The soundtrack featured the new track "Here to Stay," produced by the Chemical Brothers, which was released as a single. The single's music video highlighted scenes taken from the film. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Singles and second break-up: 2004–2007 The band released a new album on 27 March 2005, titled Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after their children. Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters), and the title track. At the 2005 NME Awards, New Order and Joy Division received the award for "Godlike Geniuses" (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, the Clash, and Happy Mondays. In 2006 the album track "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance Recording. In the autumn of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and contained every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to "Waiting for the Sirens' Call". However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like "Ceremony", "Temptation" and "Confusion") had never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, titled Item, that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for "Temptation '87" and "Ceremony". The New Order: Live in Glasgow DVD was recorded at the Glasgow Academy in 2006 and features 18 tracks, including 4 Joy Division songs. Next to that, the release also contains a bonus disc of footage from the band's personal archive including 1980s footage from Glastonbury (June 1981), Rome, Cork, Rotterdam and Toronto. In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK, Brazil and Argentina. After their Buenos Aires show in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band should stop touring. In early May 2007, Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM – originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party – and stated that "Me and Bernard aren't working together." Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that according to "a source close to the band", "The news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said ... Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order." However, Sumner revealed in 2009 that he no longer wished to make music as New Order. Reunion with new line-up, Lost Sirens and Music Complete: 2011–2016 In September 2011, the band announced that they would perform for the first time since 2006, at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels on 17 October and at the Bataclan, Paris on 18 October. The band's line-up included keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returned to the band after a ten-year break, and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman in place of Peter Hook. They played subsequent shows in London and South America in December, and released Live at the London Troxy, a live album from their performance on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London. They continued to tour throughout 2012, including a short tour of New Zealand and Australia in February/March, and several festival appearances in 2012. New Order performed at Hyde Park with Blur and the Specials to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Lost Sirens was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013. Lost Sirens is an eight-track album of songs recorded during the sessions for Waiting for the Sirens' Call. The album was discussed by Gillian Gilbert in a Brazilian interview to promote the band's appearance in São Paulo. She acknowledged issues with former member Peter Hook, and stated there was "a lot going on behind the scenes on the copyright" delaying the release. The band debuted their first new song since the Waiting for the Sirens' Call sessions, "Singularity", during Lollapalooza Chile in March 2014. In July, the group toured North America, where they debuted another song, "Plastic". On 2 September the band signed to Mute Records. The New Order back catalogue remains with Warner Music. On 22 September 2015, the band released a new album, Music Complete, their first without Peter Hook. The album was produced mostly by the band themselves, except "Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred", both produced by Tom Rowlands, while "Superheated" features additional production by Stuart Price. On 13 May 2016, New Order released a follow-up remix album Complete Music, which consists of extended and reworked mixes of each track from Music Complete. In November 2015, Peter Hook sued Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In an objection, it was revealed that Sumner, Morris and Gilbert had set up a new company behind Hook's back, that it has generated an income of £7.8 million in four years while Hook received only a fraction of that. The three members argued they had treated Hook fairly and that his stake in the band's royalties was reasonable, despite the fact that in four years, Hook had only received "1.25 per cent of the band's royalties and other income from merchandising and performances". The judge ruled that there was "at least a reasonable prospect" of Hook proving that he was not getting a fair share of royalties and other income and rejected Sumner and Morris's lawyer argument. The judge was willing to hear the case but urged the parties to come to an agreement rather than suffer legal costs of around £900,000. On 20 September 2017, the band announced that a full and final settlement had been reached in the dispute. Touring and recent work: 2017–present On 13 July 2017, New Order played a concert at Manchester International Festival with Liam Gillick. On 12 July 2019 the performance was released as a live album titled Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. (Live at MIF). The collaboration between Gillick and New Order was the subject of a documentary feature titled 'New Order: Decades', directed by Mike Christie and broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts and Showtime in the USA. On 23 August 2018, the band played the first date of a North American tour at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota, US. According to the band's official website, other stops on the tour included Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario; Long Beach, California; Kahului, Hawaii; and Honolulu, Hawaii. As of 24 August 2018, a single show in Santiago, Chile had been announced for 21 November 2018. In January 2020, the band played a four night residency in Florida, and in February 2020, they announced a co-headlining tour in North America with the Pet Shop Boys, and that the only concert in the UK in 2020 would be at The O2 on 10 October. These tour dates were later rescheduled for 2021. On 8 September 2020 the band released the single "Be a Rebel" 5 years after their previous release. A music video for the single, directed by NYSU, premiered on YouTube on 2 December. On 11 February 2021, the band announced their plans to release a live album and concert film of their 2018 show at London's Alexandra Palace, directed by Mike Christie. Entitled Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace), it was released on 7 May. Other projects In 1988, Bernard Sumner teamed up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic, also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. Electronic regrouped in 1996 for Raise the Pressure, which also featured Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk). The project's third album Twisted Tenderness was released in 1999 after which the band dissolved. In June 2009, Sumner formed a new band called Bad Lieutenant with Phil Cunningham (guitar) and Jake Evans (guitar and vocals). Their album Never Cry Another Tear was released on 5 October 2009. In addition to Cunningham and Evans the album also features appearances by Stephen Morris (drums), Jack Mitchell (drums), Tom Chapman (bass) and Alex James (bass). The live band included Morris on drums and Tom Chapman on bass. Peter Hook has been involved with several other projects. In the 1990s, Hook recorded with Killing Joke with a view to joining the band. However, original bassist Martin 'Youth' Glover instead returned to the band. In 1995 he toured with the Durutti Column. He has recorded one album with the band Revenge with Davyth Hicks and Chris Jones and two with Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts. Monaco scored a club and alternative radio hit with "What Do You Want From Me?" in 1997. Hook also formed a band called Freebass with fellow bass players Mani (the Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and vocalist Gary Briggs, which was active from 2007 to 2010. He also contributed to Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. Hook's current band Peter Hook and the Light is touring Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. In 1990 Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. The Other Two released its first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991 and released two albums, The Other Two & You in 1993 and Super Highways in 1999. They have also been involved in scoring television soundtracks, like Making Out. In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. BeMusic "BeMusic" was a name the band used for their publishing company (the LP label for Movement says "B Music" in large letters, though using an italic ß for the letter B). All four members of the band used the name for production work for other artists' recordings between 1982 and 1985. The first BeMusic credit was for Peter Hook producing Stockholm Monsters in 1982. Other artists with producer or musician credit for "BeMusic" were 52nd Street, Section 25, Marcel King, Quando Quango, Paul Haig, Thick Pigeon, Nyam Nyam and Life. Their production work as BeMusic was collected on two LTM Recordings compilation CDs, Cool As Ice: The BeMusic Productions and Twice As Nice (which also included production work by Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio, and Arthur Baker). Influences, style and legacy New Order's music mixes rock with dance music, as can be seen on signature tracks such as 1982's "Temptation", 1983's "Blue Monday" and 1987's "True Faith". Founding member Hook stated that the band's shift from playing cold dark tracks from 1981 to producing electro/rock tracks from 1982 was inspired by the music of German electronic group Kraftwerk, US rock band Sparks who had produced disco/electro-rock music with producer Giorgio Moroder on their No. 1 in Heaven album, and also the Moroder/Donna Summer collaboration on "I Feel Love". Along with Kraftwerk, the English bands Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) educated singer Bernard Sumner that one "could make music without guitars". New Order's collaboration with New York DJ Arthur Baker was inspired by the records' sounds of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. According to a staff-written "Allmusic" history, the band are also regarded as "the first alternative dance" music group with their fusion of "used icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop" and were also labeled as synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, dance-rock and electronica. They have heavily influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, and were themselves influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Neu!. They have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house. New Order's Kraftwerk influence was acknowledged by their single "Krafty", which had cover art referencing "Autobahn". Drummer Stephen Morris plays a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases plays along seamlessly with sequenced parts. All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the concert videos Taras Shevchenko (recorded in New York, November 1981) and Pumped Full of Drugs (Tokyo, May 1985). During such live gigs, Sumner alternated between guitar, keyboards, melodica and (on the track "Confusion") bass; Gilbert switched between keyboards and guitar, Morris between drums and keyboards, and Hook played both bass and electronic drums. Taras Shevchenko is also notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song, "Temptation", comes to a complete end. Reputation Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Haçienda. Speaking in 2009, fellow synthpop musician Phil Oakey described New Order's slow-burn career as cult musicians as being unusually prolonged and effective: "If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did." Cover artwork Almost all New Order recordings bear minimalist packaging, art directed by Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (with the exception of the Low-Life album) or even providing basic information such as the band name or title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single), on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or written in a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power, Corruption & Lies). Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling. Saville frequently sent the artwork straight to the printer, unreviewed by either the band or the label. Awards and nominations {\| class=wikitable \|- ! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 1983 \| rowspan="3" \| NME Awards \| Power, Corruption & Lies \| Best Dressed Sleeve \| \|- \| "Blue Monday" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Themselves \| Best Group \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|1988 \| Brit Awards \| "True Faith" \| Best British Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| rowspan=2\|Most Creative Stage Production \| \|- \| 1990 \| \|- \| 1991 \| Ivor Novello Awards \| "World in Motion" \| Best Selling A Side \| \|- \| rowspan=3\|1993 \| Mercury Prize \| Republic \| Album of the Year \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Billboard Music Awards \| Themselves \| Top Modern Rock Tracks Artist \| \|- \| "Regret" \| Top Modern Rock Track \| \|- \|1994 \| D&AD Awards \| "World (The Price of Love)" \| Pop Promo Video \| style="background:#BF8040"\| Wood Pencil \|- \| 1999 \| rowspan=1\|Q Awards \| Themselves \| Q Inspiration Award \| \|- \| 2000 \| ASCAP Pop Music Awards \| "Blue Monday" \| Most Performed Song \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2001 \|Q Awards \| "Crystal" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Žebřík Music Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best International Surprise \| \|- \| 2005 \| NME Awards \| Godlike Genius Award \| \|- \| rowspan="2" \| 2006 \| Grammy Awards \| "Guilt is a Useless Emotion" \| Best Dance Recording \| \|- \| MTV VMAJ \| "Krafty" \| Best Dance Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2012 \| UK Festival Awards \| rowspan="3" \| Themselves \| Headliner of the Year \| \|- \| Artrocker Awards \| Legend Award \| \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 2015 \| rowspan="2" \| Q Awards \| Q Outstanding Contribution To Music \| \|- \| "Restless" \| Best Track \| \|- \|Best Art Vinyl \|Music Complete \| Best Art Vinyl \| \|- \| 2016 \| International Dance Music Awards \| "Plastic" \| Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track \| \|- \| 2019 \| Silver Clef Awards \| Bernard Sumner \| Outstanding Achievement Award \| Band members Current Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, melodica (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Stephen Morris – drums, percussion, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Gillian Gilbert – keyboards, guitars, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2001, 2011–present) Phil Cunningham – guitars, keyboards, electronic percussion (2001–2007, 2011–present) Tom Chapman – bass, keyboards (2011–present) Former Peter Hook – bass, electronic percussion, vocals, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007) Timeline Discography Movement (1981) Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) Low-Life (1985) Brotherhood (1986) Technique (1989) Republic (1993) Get Ready (2001) Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005) Lost Sirens (2013) Music Complete (2015) References Further reading Hickey, Dec. From Heaven to Heaven. New Order Live. The Early Years (1981-1984) at Close Quarters. London: Dec Hickey, 2012. Edge, Brian. New Order + Joy Division: Pleasures and Wayward Distractions. London: Omnibus Press, 1988. Flowers, Claude. New Order + Joy Division: Dreams Never End. London: Omnibus Press, 1995. Johnson, Mark. An Ideal For Living: An History Of Joy Division. London: Bobcat Books, 1984. Middles, Mick. From Joy Division to New Order: The Factory Story. London: Virgin Books, 1996. External links New Order Online – band-endorsed fansite English new wave musical groups English post-punk music groups British synth-pop new wave groups English synth-pop groups Alternative dance musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Brit Award winners Ivor Novello Award winners 1980 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England 1998 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England 2011 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1980 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups reestablished in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2007 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Qwest Records artists Reprise Records artists Mute Records artists Factory Records artists Factory Benelux artists Musical quintets Musical groups from Manchester	true	[ "Yusuf Meher Ali (23 September 1903 – 2 July 1950) was an Indian freedom fighter and socialist leader. He was elected Mayor of Bombay in 1942 while he was imprisoned in Yerawada Central Prison.\n\nHe was the founder of the National Militia, Bombay Youth League and the Congress Socialist Party and played a role in several peasant and trade union movements. He coined the term 'Simon Go Back' \n\nHe coined the term \"quit India\" and was part of the Quit India Movement along with Mahatma Gandhi for India's last nationwide campaign for independence from the British Empire. He was a participant of underground movement and was in forefront of Quit India Movement.\n\nList of works\n What to Read: A Study Syllabus (1937)\n Leaders of India (1942)\n A Trip to Pakistan (1944)\n The Modern World: A Political Study Syllabus, Part 1 (1945)\n The Price of Liberty (1948)\n Underground Movement(1942)\n\nReferences \n\nIndian Muslims\nQuit India Movement\nIndian socialists\n1903 births\n1950 deaths\nMayors of Mumbai\nMaharashtra local politicians", "Yemane Niguse (Amharic: የማነ ንጉሴ; 1980s – 20 February 2021) was an Ethiopian politician who co-founded the Fenkil Tigray Movement.\n\nEarly life\nNiguse was born in Hewane, a small town in the Tigray Region in Ethiopia. He became a teacher before becoming politically active.\n\nPolitical career\nNiguse was known for being critical of the TPLF government and especially argued against the integrity of the regional election held in 2020. His most notable political contribution was popularizing the Fenkil Tigray Movement by using social media. His method of spreading awareness of Fenkil was especially successful amongst youths. Fenkil's political objective was to, \"free Tigray's people from the pressure of TPLF ... spreading across many towns in the Tigray region.\"\n\nIn July 2020, four months prior to the start of the Tigray War, as leader of the Fenkil Movement, Yemane criticised the TPLF for what he said was the recruitment of Tigrayan youths into military training on false pretences. According to Yemane, the youths were given promises of land that were not fulfilled, and the TPLF claimed that the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) were planning to attack Tigray Region. The TPLF claimed that the Fenkil Movement was supported by the government of Eritrea.\n\nAssassination\nNiguse was assassinated on 20 February 2021 in a small town outside of Mekelle, Tigray named Hewane. He was found dead alongside two members of his security detail. According to Borkena Media, \"The Ethiopian government confirmed that the activist is killed, and linked the assassination to what it called remnants [of] Tigray People's Liberation Front.\"\n\nReferences\n\nIndependent politicians in Ethiopia\nYear of birth uncertain\n2021 deaths" ]
[ "New Order (band)", "Movement: 1981-1982", "what was Movement?", "With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation," ]	C_f4bea434299f44b4810b6d7037af7e7b_1	what was one of the songs on the album?	2	what was one of the songs on the album Movement?	New Order (band)	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really - for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". CANNOTANSWER	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place".	New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis; they were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. New Order's integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. They were the flagship band for Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub The Haçienda, and worked in long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville. While the band's early years were overshadowed by the legacy of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released successful albums such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation Substance (1987). They disbanded in 1993 to work on individual projects before reuniting in 1998. In the years since, New Order has gone through various hiatuses and personnel changes, most prominently the departure of Hook in 2007. They released their tenth studio album, Music Complete, in 2015. History Origins and formation: 1977–1980 Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis took his own life on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first American tour, and prior to the release of the band's second album, Closer. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Prior to his death, the members of Joy Division had agreed not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave. On 29 July 1980, the still unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over 20 years, is credited for having found the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. The group states that the name New Order (as was also the case with "Joy Division") does not draw a direct line to National Socialism or Fascism. The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as he could sing when he wasn't playing his guitar. They wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Her first live performance with the band occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. Movement: 1981–1982 The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really – for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984 Power, Corruption & Lies, released in May 1983, was a synthesiser-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album, although the band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12" single of all time in the UK; however, (much to the chagrin of the buying public) it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included however on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies. The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesised single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album. KROQ Los Angeles DJ Jed the Fish claims New Order had more to do with the emergence of house music than the Warehouse music of Chicago and "Frankie Knuckles and the whole so-called House music scene. Unless you were actually from regional Chicago, had you ever heard of House music until New Order? Be real, now." Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987 1985's Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss"—the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme—and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex. Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions. In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvatation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order. Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band were sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who alleged that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver. In 1990, New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion", under the ad hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was the band's sole number one UK hit. The song was originally planned to be titled "E for England", however the Football Association vetoed the title upon realising that this was a reference to ecstasy; a drug heavily associated with the Haçienda. (Allen claimed that his original draft lyrics included "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.") The song also featured chanting from members of the England team and Allen, and a guest rap from England player John Barnes. It was again produced by Stephen Hague, who the band chose to produce their next album. The band's next album Republic was shadowed by the collapse of their longtime label Factory Records. The label had been ailing due to financial difficulties, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1992. New Order never had a formal contract with Factory. Although unusual for a major group, this was Factory's standard practice until the mid-1980s. Because of this, the band, rather than Factory Records, legally owned all of their recordings. This has been cited by Wilson himself as the main reason London Records' 1992 offer to buy the ailing label fell through. Following Factory's collapse, New Order signed with London, as did Morris and Gilbert separately for their side project The Other Two, whose debut album was originally intended for release on Factory. Republic, released around the world in 1993, spawned the singles "Regret"—New Order's highest-charting single in the US—"Ruined in a Day", "World", and "Spooky". Following the release and promotion of Republic, the band put New Order on hold while focusing on side projects; with The Other Two's debut album released in 1993. In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixes of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "1963", and "Round & Round". The new versions of "True Faith" and "1963" (the latter as a more guitar-oriented version produced by Arthur Baker) were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the track listing was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of existing and newly commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc or cassette composed entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was released as a single for a third time to promote the collection. Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003 The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. Nearly five years had passed since they had last seen each other. Sumner said, "We decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out." By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year. In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival. Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and focused on more guitar oriented music. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins played guitar and sang back-up on the track "Turn My Way," and in 2001 toured with the band on dates in the UK, US, and Japan for a short period of time. Phil Cunningham (formerly of Marion) joined the band in a live capacity, deputising for Gilbert who declined to tour in favour of caring for her and Morris' children. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie provided vocals on the track "Rock the Shack". Singles from the album included "Crystal," "60 Miles an Hour" and Someone Like You." In 2002, Q featured New Order on their list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way". Both New Order and Joy Division were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, depicting the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of the Fall and former members of Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, lent a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings. The film touched on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and the Durutti Column. The soundtrack featured the new track "Here to Stay," produced by the Chemical Brothers, which was released as a single. The single's music video highlighted scenes taken from the film. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Singles and second break-up: 2004–2007 The band released a new album on 27 March 2005, titled Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after their children. Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters), and the title track. At the 2005 NME Awards, New Order and Joy Division received the award for "Godlike Geniuses" (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, the Clash, and Happy Mondays. In 2006 the album track "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance Recording. In the autumn of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and contained every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to "Waiting for the Sirens' Call". However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like "Ceremony", "Temptation" and "Confusion") had never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, titled Item, that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for "Temptation '87" and "Ceremony". The New Order: Live in Glasgow DVD was recorded at the Glasgow Academy in 2006 and features 18 tracks, including 4 Joy Division songs. Next to that, the release also contains a bonus disc of footage from the band's personal archive including 1980s footage from Glastonbury (June 1981), Rome, Cork, Rotterdam and Toronto. In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK, Brazil and Argentina. After their Buenos Aires show in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band should stop touring. In early May 2007, Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM – originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party – and stated that "Me and Bernard aren't working together." Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that according to "a source close to the band", "The news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said ... Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order." However, Sumner revealed in 2009 that he no longer wished to make music as New Order. Reunion with new line-up, Lost Sirens and Music Complete: 2011–2016 In September 2011, the band announced that they would perform for the first time since 2006, at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels on 17 October and at the Bataclan, Paris on 18 October. The band's line-up included keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returned to the band after a ten-year break, and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman in place of Peter Hook. They played subsequent shows in London and South America in December, and released Live at the London Troxy, a live album from their performance on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London. They continued to tour throughout 2012, including a short tour of New Zealand and Australia in February/March, and several festival appearances in 2012. New Order performed at Hyde Park with Blur and the Specials to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Lost Sirens was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013. Lost Sirens is an eight-track album of songs recorded during the sessions for Waiting for the Sirens' Call. The album was discussed by Gillian Gilbert in a Brazilian interview to promote the band's appearance in São Paulo. She acknowledged issues with former member Peter Hook, and stated there was "a lot going on behind the scenes on the copyright" delaying the release. The band debuted their first new song since the Waiting for the Sirens' Call sessions, "Singularity", during Lollapalooza Chile in March 2014. In July, the group toured North America, where they debuted another song, "Plastic". On 2 September the band signed to Mute Records. The New Order back catalogue remains with Warner Music. On 22 September 2015, the band released a new album, Music Complete, their first without Peter Hook. The album was produced mostly by the band themselves, except "Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred", both produced by Tom Rowlands, while "Superheated" features additional production by Stuart Price. On 13 May 2016, New Order released a follow-up remix album Complete Music, which consists of extended and reworked mixes of each track from Music Complete. In November 2015, Peter Hook sued Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In an objection, it was revealed that Sumner, Morris and Gilbert had set up a new company behind Hook's back, that it has generated an income of £7.8 million in four years while Hook received only a fraction of that. The three members argued they had treated Hook fairly and that his stake in the band's royalties was reasonable, despite the fact that in four years, Hook had only received "1.25 per cent of the band's royalties and other income from merchandising and performances". The judge ruled that there was "at least a reasonable prospect" of Hook proving that he was not getting a fair share of royalties and other income and rejected Sumner and Morris's lawyer argument. The judge was willing to hear the case but urged the parties to come to an agreement rather than suffer legal costs of around £900,000. On 20 September 2017, the band announced that a full and final settlement had been reached in the dispute. Touring and recent work: 2017–present On 13 July 2017, New Order played a concert at Manchester International Festival with Liam Gillick. On 12 July 2019 the performance was released as a live album titled Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. (Live at MIF). The collaboration between Gillick and New Order was the subject of a documentary feature titled 'New Order: Decades', directed by Mike Christie and broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts and Showtime in the USA. On 23 August 2018, the band played the first date of a North American tour at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota, US. According to the band's official website, other stops on the tour included Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario; Long Beach, California; Kahului, Hawaii; and Honolulu, Hawaii. As of 24 August 2018, a single show in Santiago, Chile had been announced for 21 November 2018. In January 2020, the band played a four night residency in Florida, and in February 2020, they announced a co-headlining tour in North America with the Pet Shop Boys, and that the only concert in the UK in 2020 would be at The O2 on 10 October. These tour dates were later rescheduled for 2021. On 8 September 2020 the band released the single "Be a Rebel" 5 years after their previous release. A music video for the single, directed by NYSU, premiered on YouTube on 2 December. On 11 February 2021, the band announced their plans to release a live album and concert film of their 2018 show at London's Alexandra Palace, directed by Mike Christie. Entitled Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace), it was released on 7 May. Other projects In 1988, Bernard Sumner teamed up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic, also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. Electronic regrouped in 1996 for Raise the Pressure, which also featured Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk). The project's third album Twisted Tenderness was released in 1999 after which the band dissolved. In June 2009, Sumner formed a new band called Bad Lieutenant with Phil Cunningham (guitar) and Jake Evans (guitar and vocals). Their album Never Cry Another Tear was released on 5 October 2009. In addition to Cunningham and Evans the album also features appearances by Stephen Morris (drums), Jack Mitchell (drums), Tom Chapman (bass) and Alex James (bass). The live band included Morris on drums and Tom Chapman on bass. Peter Hook has been involved with several other projects. In the 1990s, Hook recorded with Killing Joke with a view to joining the band. However, original bassist Martin 'Youth' Glover instead returned to the band. In 1995 he toured with the Durutti Column. He has recorded one album with the band Revenge with Davyth Hicks and Chris Jones and two with Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts. Monaco scored a club and alternative radio hit with "What Do You Want From Me?" in 1997. Hook also formed a band called Freebass with fellow bass players Mani (the Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and vocalist Gary Briggs, which was active from 2007 to 2010. He also contributed to Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. Hook's current band Peter Hook and the Light is touring Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. In 1990 Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. The Other Two released its first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991 and released two albums, The Other Two & You in 1993 and Super Highways in 1999. They have also been involved in scoring television soundtracks, like Making Out. In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. BeMusic "BeMusic" was a name the band used for their publishing company (the LP label for Movement says "B Music" in large letters, though using an italic ß for the letter B). All four members of the band used the name for production work for other artists' recordings between 1982 and 1985. The first BeMusic credit was for Peter Hook producing Stockholm Monsters in 1982. Other artists with producer or musician credit for "BeMusic" were 52nd Street, Section 25, Marcel King, Quando Quango, Paul Haig, Thick Pigeon, Nyam Nyam and Life. Their production work as BeMusic was collected on two LTM Recordings compilation CDs, Cool As Ice: The BeMusic Productions and Twice As Nice (which also included production work by Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio, and Arthur Baker). Influences, style and legacy New Order's music mixes rock with dance music, as can be seen on signature tracks such as 1982's "Temptation", 1983's "Blue Monday" and 1987's "True Faith". Founding member Hook stated that the band's shift from playing cold dark tracks from 1981 to producing electro/rock tracks from 1982 was inspired by the music of German electronic group Kraftwerk, US rock band Sparks who had produced disco/electro-rock music with producer Giorgio Moroder on their No. 1 in Heaven album, and also the Moroder/Donna Summer collaboration on "I Feel Love". Along with Kraftwerk, the English bands Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) educated singer Bernard Sumner that one "could make music without guitars". New Order's collaboration with New York DJ Arthur Baker was inspired by the records' sounds of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. According to a staff-written "Allmusic" history, the band are also regarded as "the first alternative dance" music group with their fusion of "used icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop" and were also labeled as synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, dance-rock and electronica. They have heavily influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, and were themselves influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Neu!. They have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house. New Order's Kraftwerk influence was acknowledged by their single "Krafty", which had cover art referencing "Autobahn". Drummer Stephen Morris plays a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases plays along seamlessly with sequenced parts. All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the concert videos Taras Shevchenko (recorded in New York, November 1981) and Pumped Full of Drugs (Tokyo, May 1985). During such live gigs, Sumner alternated between guitar, keyboards, melodica and (on the track "Confusion") bass; Gilbert switched between keyboards and guitar, Morris between drums and keyboards, and Hook played both bass and electronic drums. Taras Shevchenko is also notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song, "Temptation", comes to a complete end. Reputation Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Haçienda. Speaking in 2009, fellow synthpop musician Phil Oakey described New Order's slow-burn career as cult musicians as being unusually prolonged and effective: "If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did." Cover artwork Almost all New Order recordings bear minimalist packaging, art directed by Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (with the exception of the Low-Life album) or even providing basic information such as the band name or title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single), on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or written in a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power, Corruption & Lies). Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling. Saville frequently sent the artwork straight to the printer, unreviewed by either the band or the label. Awards and nominations {\| class=wikitable \|- ! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 1983 \| rowspan="3" \| NME Awards \| Power, Corruption & Lies \| Best Dressed Sleeve \| \|- \| "Blue Monday" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Themselves \| Best Group \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|1988 \| Brit Awards \| "True Faith" \| Best British Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| rowspan=2\|Most Creative Stage Production \| \|- \| 1990 \| \|- \| 1991 \| Ivor Novello Awards \| "World in Motion" \| Best Selling A Side \| \|- \| rowspan=3\|1993 \| Mercury Prize \| Republic \| Album of the Year \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Billboard Music Awards \| Themselves \| Top Modern Rock Tracks Artist \| \|- \| "Regret" \| Top Modern Rock Track \| \|- \|1994 \| D&AD Awards \| "World (The Price of Love)" \| Pop Promo Video \| style="background:#BF8040"\| Wood Pencil \|- \| 1999 \| rowspan=1\|Q Awards \| Themselves \| Q Inspiration Award \| \|- \| 2000 \| ASCAP Pop Music Awards \| "Blue Monday" \| Most Performed Song \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2001 \|Q Awards \| "Crystal" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Žebřík Music Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best International Surprise \| \|- \| 2005 \| NME Awards \| Godlike Genius Award \| \|- \| rowspan="2" \| 2006 \| Grammy Awards \| "Guilt is a Useless Emotion" \| Best Dance Recording \| \|- \| MTV VMAJ \| "Krafty" \| Best Dance Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2012 \| UK Festival Awards \| rowspan="3" \| Themselves \| Headliner of the Year \| \|- \| Artrocker Awards \| Legend Award \| \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 2015 \| rowspan="2" \| Q Awards \| Q Outstanding Contribution To Music \| \|- \| "Restless" \| Best Track \| \|- \|Best Art Vinyl \|Music Complete \| Best Art Vinyl \| \|- \| 2016 \| International Dance Music Awards \| "Plastic" \| Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track \| \|- \| 2019 \| Silver Clef Awards \| Bernard Sumner \| Outstanding Achievement Award \| Band members Current Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, melodica (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Stephen Morris – drums, percussion, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Gillian Gilbert – keyboards, guitars, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2001, 2011–present) Phil Cunningham – guitars, keyboards, electronic percussion (2001–2007, 2011–present) Tom Chapman – bass, keyboards (2011–present) Former Peter Hook – bass, electronic percussion, vocals, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007) Timeline Discography Movement (1981) Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) Low-Life (1985) Brotherhood (1986) Technique (1989) Republic (1993) Get Ready (2001) Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005) Lost Sirens (2013) Music Complete (2015) References Further reading Hickey, Dec. From Heaven to Heaven. New Order Live. The Early Years (1981-1984) at Close Quarters. London: Dec Hickey, 2012. Edge, Brian. New Order + Joy Division: Pleasures and Wayward Distractions. London: Omnibus Press, 1988. Flowers, Claude. New Order + Joy Division: Dreams Never End. London: Omnibus Press, 1995. Johnson, Mark. An Ideal For Living: An History Of Joy Division. London: Bobcat Books, 1984. Middles, Mick. From Joy Division to New Order: The Factory Story. London: Virgin Books, 1996. External links New Order Online – band-endorsed fansite English new wave musical groups English post-punk music groups British synth-pop new wave groups English synth-pop groups Alternative dance musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Brit Award winners Ivor Novello Award winners 1980 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England 1998 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England 2011 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1980 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups reestablished in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2007 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Qwest Records artists Reprise Records artists Mute Records artists Factory Records artists Factory Benelux artists Musical quintets Musical groups from Manchester	true	[ "Feel What U Feel is a children's album by American musician Lisa Loeb. The album was released on October 7, 2016, and the album's first single was \"Feel What U Feel.\" The album won Best Children's Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\nRelease \nThe album was announced on September 8, 2016 with the release of the lead single \"Feel What U Feel,\" featuring Craig Robinson. The album was then released by Furious Rose Productions on October 7, 2016 as an Amazon Music exclusive.\n\nPromotion \nLisa Loeb Embarked a small tour to promote the Children's album in the Fall of 2016 & Winter of 2017. Despite going on a children's tour, Lisa performed many of her \"Adult\" and \"Older\" songs. Lisa also constantly played her songs on \"Kids Place Live Radio\" for nearly 1 year after release.\n\nSingles \n\"Feel What U Feel\" was released as the album's lead single of September 8, 2016. The second single, \"Moon Star Pie (It's Gunna Be Alright)\" was released on October 7, 2016. The third single, \"Wanna Do Day\" ft. Ed Helms was released on January 12, 2017. The fourth and final single of the album, \"The Sky Is Always Blue\" was released on March 13, 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2016 albums\nChildren's music albums\nLisa Loeb albums", "\"What If\" is a song recorded by American recording artist Colbie Caillat. It was written by Caillat, Rick Nowels and Jason Reeves, and produced by John Shanks. The song was released as a promotional single from the soundtrack of the film Letters to Juliet and later was included on her third studio album All of You.\n\nBackground and reception\n\"What If\" was included on the soundtrack of the film Letters to Juliet, on May 14, 2011 as a \"brand new track\", alongside her other song \"You Got Me\", which is on her second album Breakthrough. Only, on July 12, 2011, the song was included on her third studio album All of You. Gary Graff wrote for Billboard that \"it's hard to not appreciate the smooth craft of the song\".\n\nChart performance\nDue to strong digital downloads when the album was released, the song debut at number 47 on the Hot Digital Songs chart and at number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nColbie Caillat songs\n2011 songs\nSongs written by Rick Nowels\nSong recordings produced by John Shanks\nSongs written by Colbie Caillat\nSongs written by Jason Reeves (songwriter)" ]
[ "New Order (band)", "Movement: 1981-1982", "what was Movement?", "With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation,", "what was one of the songs on the album?", "The initial release as New Order was the single \"Ceremony\", backed with \"In a Lonely Place\"." ]	C_f4bea434299f44b4810b6d7037af7e7b_1	what year was Movement released?	3	what year was Movement released?	New Order (band)	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really - for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". CANNOTANSWER	1981,	New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis; they were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. New Order's integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. They were the flagship band for Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub The Haçienda, and worked in long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville. While the band's early years were overshadowed by the legacy of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released successful albums such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation Substance (1987). They disbanded in 1993 to work on individual projects before reuniting in 1998. In the years since, New Order has gone through various hiatuses and personnel changes, most prominently the departure of Hook in 2007. They released their tenth studio album, Music Complete, in 2015. History Origins and formation: 1977–1980 Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis took his own life on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first American tour, and prior to the release of the band's second album, Closer. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Prior to his death, the members of Joy Division had agreed not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave. On 29 July 1980, the still unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over 20 years, is credited for having found the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. The group states that the name New Order (as was also the case with "Joy Division") does not draw a direct line to National Socialism or Fascism. The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as he could sing when he wasn't playing his guitar. They wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Her first live performance with the band occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. Movement: 1981–1982 The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really – for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984 Power, Corruption & Lies, released in May 1983, was a synthesiser-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album, although the band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12" single of all time in the UK; however, (much to the chagrin of the buying public) it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included however on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies. The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesised single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album. KROQ Los Angeles DJ Jed the Fish claims New Order had more to do with the emergence of house music than the Warehouse music of Chicago and "Frankie Knuckles and the whole so-called House music scene. Unless you were actually from regional Chicago, had you ever heard of House music until New Order? Be real, now." Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987 1985's Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss"—the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme—and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex. Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions. In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvatation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order. Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band were sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who alleged that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver. In 1990, New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion", under the ad hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was the band's sole number one UK hit. The song was originally planned to be titled "E for England", however the Football Association vetoed the title upon realising that this was a reference to ecstasy; a drug heavily associated with the Haçienda. (Allen claimed that his original draft lyrics included "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.") The song also featured chanting from members of the England team and Allen, and a guest rap from England player John Barnes. It was again produced by Stephen Hague, who the band chose to produce their next album. The band's next album Republic was shadowed by the collapse of their longtime label Factory Records. The label had been ailing due to financial difficulties, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1992. New Order never had a formal contract with Factory. Although unusual for a major group, this was Factory's standard practice until the mid-1980s. Because of this, the band, rather than Factory Records, legally owned all of their recordings. This has been cited by Wilson himself as the main reason London Records' 1992 offer to buy the ailing label fell through. Following Factory's collapse, New Order signed with London, as did Morris and Gilbert separately for their side project The Other Two, whose debut album was originally intended for release on Factory. Republic, released around the world in 1993, spawned the singles "Regret"—New Order's highest-charting single in the US—"Ruined in a Day", "World", and "Spooky". Following the release and promotion of Republic, the band put New Order on hold while focusing on side projects; with The Other Two's debut album released in 1993. In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixes of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "1963", and "Round & Round". The new versions of "True Faith" and "1963" (the latter as a more guitar-oriented version produced by Arthur Baker) were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the track listing was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of existing and newly commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc or cassette composed entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was released as a single for a third time to promote the collection. Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003 The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. Nearly five years had passed since they had last seen each other. Sumner said, "We decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out." By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year. In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival. Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and focused on more guitar oriented music. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins played guitar and sang back-up on the track "Turn My Way," and in 2001 toured with the band on dates in the UK, US, and Japan for a short period of time. Phil Cunningham (formerly of Marion) joined the band in a live capacity, deputising for Gilbert who declined to tour in favour of caring for her and Morris' children. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie provided vocals on the track "Rock the Shack". Singles from the album included "Crystal," "60 Miles an Hour" and Someone Like You." In 2002, Q featured New Order on their list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way". Both New Order and Joy Division were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, depicting the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of the Fall and former members of Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, lent a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings. The film touched on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and the Durutti Column. The soundtrack featured the new track "Here to Stay," produced by the Chemical Brothers, which was released as a single. The single's music video highlighted scenes taken from the film. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Singles and second break-up: 2004–2007 The band released a new album on 27 March 2005, titled Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after their children. Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters), and the title track. At the 2005 NME Awards, New Order and Joy Division received the award for "Godlike Geniuses" (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, the Clash, and Happy Mondays. In 2006 the album track "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance Recording. In the autumn of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and contained every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to "Waiting for the Sirens' Call". However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like "Ceremony", "Temptation" and "Confusion") had never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, titled Item, that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for "Temptation '87" and "Ceremony". The New Order: Live in Glasgow DVD was recorded at the Glasgow Academy in 2006 and features 18 tracks, including 4 Joy Division songs. Next to that, the release also contains a bonus disc of footage from the band's personal archive including 1980s footage from Glastonbury (June 1981), Rome, Cork, Rotterdam and Toronto. In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK, Brazil and Argentina. After their Buenos Aires show in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band should stop touring. In early May 2007, Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM – originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party – and stated that "Me and Bernard aren't working together." Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that according to "a source close to the band", "The news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said ... Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order." However, Sumner revealed in 2009 that he no longer wished to make music as New Order. Reunion with new line-up, Lost Sirens and Music Complete: 2011–2016 In September 2011, the band announced that they would perform for the first time since 2006, at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels on 17 October and at the Bataclan, Paris on 18 October. The band's line-up included keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returned to the band after a ten-year break, and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman in place of Peter Hook. They played subsequent shows in London and South America in December, and released Live at the London Troxy, a live album from their performance on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London. They continued to tour throughout 2012, including a short tour of New Zealand and Australia in February/March, and several festival appearances in 2012. New Order performed at Hyde Park with Blur and the Specials to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Lost Sirens was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013. Lost Sirens is an eight-track album of songs recorded during the sessions for Waiting for the Sirens' Call. The album was discussed by Gillian Gilbert in a Brazilian interview to promote the band's appearance in São Paulo. She acknowledged issues with former member Peter Hook, and stated there was "a lot going on behind the scenes on the copyright" delaying the release. The band debuted their first new song since the Waiting for the Sirens' Call sessions, "Singularity", during Lollapalooza Chile in March 2014. In July, the group toured North America, where they debuted another song, "Plastic". On 2 September the band signed to Mute Records. The New Order back catalogue remains with Warner Music. On 22 September 2015, the band released a new album, Music Complete, their first without Peter Hook. The album was produced mostly by the band themselves, except "Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred", both produced by Tom Rowlands, while "Superheated" features additional production by Stuart Price. On 13 May 2016, New Order released a follow-up remix album Complete Music, which consists of extended and reworked mixes of each track from Music Complete. In November 2015, Peter Hook sued Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In an objection, it was revealed that Sumner, Morris and Gilbert had set up a new company behind Hook's back, that it has generated an income of £7.8 million in four years while Hook received only a fraction of that. The three members argued they had treated Hook fairly and that his stake in the band's royalties was reasonable, despite the fact that in four years, Hook had only received "1.25 per cent of the band's royalties and other income from merchandising and performances". The judge ruled that there was "at least a reasonable prospect" of Hook proving that he was not getting a fair share of royalties and other income and rejected Sumner and Morris's lawyer argument. The judge was willing to hear the case but urged the parties to come to an agreement rather than suffer legal costs of around £900,000. On 20 September 2017, the band announced that a full and final settlement had been reached in the dispute. Touring and recent work: 2017–present On 13 July 2017, New Order played a concert at Manchester International Festival with Liam Gillick. On 12 July 2019 the performance was released as a live album titled Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. (Live at MIF). The collaboration between Gillick and New Order was the subject of a documentary feature titled 'New Order: Decades', directed by Mike Christie and broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts and Showtime in the USA. On 23 August 2018, the band played the first date of a North American tour at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota, US. According to the band's official website, other stops on the tour included Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario; Long Beach, California; Kahului, Hawaii; and Honolulu, Hawaii. As of 24 August 2018, a single show in Santiago, Chile had been announced for 21 November 2018. In January 2020, the band played a four night residency in Florida, and in February 2020, they announced a co-headlining tour in North America with the Pet Shop Boys, and that the only concert in the UK in 2020 would be at The O2 on 10 October. These tour dates were later rescheduled for 2021. On 8 September 2020 the band released the single "Be a Rebel" 5 years after their previous release. A music video for the single, directed by NYSU, premiered on YouTube on 2 December. On 11 February 2021, the band announced their plans to release a live album and concert film of their 2018 show at London's Alexandra Palace, directed by Mike Christie. Entitled Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace), it was released on 7 May. Other projects In 1988, Bernard Sumner teamed up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic, also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. Electronic regrouped in 1996 for Raise the Pressure, which also featured Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk). The project's third album Twisted Tenderness was released in 1999 after which the band dissolved. In June 2009, Sumner formed a new band called Bad Lieutenant with Phil Cunningham (guitar) and Jake Evans (guitar and vocals). Their album Never Cry Another Tear was released on 5 October 2009. In addition to Cunningham and Evans the album also features appearances by Stephen Morris (drums), Jack Mitchell (drums), Tom Chapman (bass) and Alex James (bass). The live band included Morris on drums and Tom Chapman on bass. Peter Hook has been involved with several other projects. In the 1990s, Hook recorded with Killing Joke with a view to joining the band. However, original bassist Martin 'Youth' Glover instead returned to the band. In 1995 he toured with the Durutti Column. He has recorded one album with the band Revenge with Davyth Hicks and Chris Jones and two with Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts. Monaco scored a club and alternative radio hit with "What Do You Want From Me?" in 1997. Hook also formed a band called Freebass with fellow bass players Mani (the Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and vocalist Gary Briggs, which was active from 2007 to 2010. He also contributed to Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. Hook's current band Peter Hook and the Light is touring Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. In 1990 Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. The Other Two released its first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991 and released two albums, The Other Two & You in 1993 and Super Highways in 1999. They have also been involved in scoring television soundtracks, like Making Out. In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. BeMusic "BeMusic" was a name the band used for their publishing company (the LP label for Movement says "B Music" in large letters, though using an italic ß for the letter B). All four members of the band used the name for production work for other artists' recordings between 1982 and 1985. The first BeMusic credit was for Peter Hook producing Stockholm Monsters in 1982. Other artists with producer or musician credit for "BeMusic" were 52nd Street, Section 25, Marcel King, Quando Quango, Paul Haig, Thick Pigeon, Nyam Nyam and Life. Their production work as BeMusic was collected on two LTM Recordings compilation CDs, Cool As Ice: The BeMusic Productions and Twice As Nice (which also included production work by Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio, and Arthur Baker). Influences, style and legacy New Order's music mixes rock with dance music, as can be seen on signature tracks such as 1982's "Temptation", 1983's "Blue Monday" and 1987's "True Faith". Founding member Hook stated that the band's shift from playing cold dark tracks from 1981 to producing electro/rock tracks from 1982 was inspired by the music of German electronic group Kraftwerk, US rock band Sparks who had produced disco/electro-rock music with producer Giorgio Moroder on their No. 1 in Heaven album, and also the Moroder/Donna Summer collaboration on "I Feel Love". Along with Kraftwerk, the English bands Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) educated singer Bernard Sumner that one "could make music without guitars". New Order's collaboration with New York DJ Arthur Baker was inspired by the records' sounds of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. According to a staff-written "Allmusic" history, the band are also regarded as "the first alternative dance" music group with their fusion of "used icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop" and were also labeled as synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, dance-rock and electronica. They have heavily influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, and were themselves influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Neu!. They have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house. New Order's Kraftwerk influence was acknowledged by their single "Krafty", which had cover art referencing "Autobahn". Drummer Stephen Morris plays a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases plays along seamlessly with sequenced parts. All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the concert videos Taras Shevchenko (recorded in New York, November 1981) and Pumped Full of Drugs (Tokyo, May 1985). During such live gigs, Sumner alternated between guitar, keyboards, melodica and (on the track "Confusion") bass; Gilbert switched between keyboards and guitar, Morris between drums and keyboards, and Hook played both bass and electronic drums. Taras Shevchenko is also notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song, "Temptation", comes to a complete end. Reputation Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Haçienda. Speaking in 2009, fellow synthpop musician Phil Oakey described New Order's slow-burn career as cult musicians as being unusually prolonged and effective: "If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did." Cover artwork Almost all New Order recordings bear minimalist packaging, art directed by Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (with the exception of the Low-Life album) or even providing basic information such as the band name or title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single), on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or written in a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power, Corruption & Lies). Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling. Saville frequently sent the artwork straight to the printer, unreviewed by either the band or the label. Awards and nominations {\| class=wikitable \|- ! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 1983 \| rowspan="3" \| NME Awards \| Power, Corruption & Lies \| Best Dressed Sleeve \| \|- \| "Blue Monday" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Themselves \| Best Group \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|1988 \| Brit Awards \| "True Faith" \| Best British Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| rowspan=2\|Most Creative Stage Production \| \|- \| 1990 \| \|- \| 1991 \| Ivor Novello Awards \| "World in Motion" \| Best Selling A Side \| \|- \| rowspan=3\|1993 \| Mercury Prize \| Republic \| Album of the Year \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Billboard Music Awards \| Themselves \| Top Modern Rock Tracks Artist \| \|- \| "Regret" \| Top Modern Rock Track \| \|- \|1994 \| D&AD Awards \| "World (The Price of Love)" \| Pop Promo Video \| style="background:#BF8040"\| Wood Pencil \|- \| 1999 \| rowspan=1\|Q Awards \| Themselves \| Q Inspiration Award \| \|- \| 2000 \| ASCAP Pop Music Awards \| "Blue Monday" \| Most Performed Song \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2001 \|Q Awards \| "Crystal" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Žebřík Music Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best International Surprise \| \|- \| 2005 \| NME Awards \| Godlike Genius Award \| \|- \| rowspan="2" \| 2006 \| Grammy Awards \| "Guilt is a Useless Emotion" \| Best Dance Recording \| \|- \| MTV VMAJ \| "Krafty" \| Best Dance Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2012 \| UK Festival Awards \| rowspan="3" \| Themselves \| Headliner of the Year \| \|- \| Artrocker Awards \| Legend Award \| \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 2015 \| rowspan="2" \| Q Awards \| Q Outstanding Contribution To Music \| \|- \| "Restless" \| Best Track \| \|- \|Best Art Vinyl \|Music Complete \| Best Art Vinyl \| \|- \| 2016 \| International Dance Music Awards \| "Plastic" \| Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track \| \|- \| 2019 \| Silver Clef Awards \| Bernard Sumner \| Outstanding Achievement Award \| Band members Current Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, melodica (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Stephen Morris – drums, percussion, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Gillian Gilbert – keyboards, guitars, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2001, 2011–present) Phil Cunningham – guitars, keyboards, electronic percussion (2001–2007, 2011–present) Tom Chapman – bass, keyboards (2011–present) Former Peter Hook – bass, electronic percussion, vocals, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007) Timeline Discography Movement (1981) Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) Low-Life (1985) Brotherhood (1986) Technique (1989) Republic (1993) Get Ready (2001) Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005) Lost Sirens (2013) Music Complete (2015) References Further reading Hickey, Dec. From Heaven to Heaven. New Order Live. The Early Years (1981-1984) at Close Quarters. London: Dec Hickey, 2012. Edge, Brian. New Order + Joy Division: Pleasures and Wayward Distractions. London: Omnibus Press, 1988. Flowers, Claude. New Order + Joy Division: Dreams Never End. London: Omnibus Press, 1995. Johnson, Mark. An Ideal For Living: An History Of Joy Division. London: Bobcat Books, 1984. Middles, Mick. From Joy Division to New Order: The Factory Story. London: Virgin Books, 1996. External links New Order Online – band-endorsed fansite English new wave musical groups English post-punk music groups British synth-pop new wave groups English synth-pop groups Alternative dance musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Brit Award winners Ivor Novello Award winners 1980 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England 1998 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England 2011 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1980 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups reestablished in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2007 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Qwest Records artists Reprise Records artists Mute Records artists Factory Records artists Factory Benelux artists Musical quintets Musical groups from Manchester	true	[ "Juliet Bressan is an Irish novelist and doctor who began her writing career as a medical journalist and then became an author.\n\nHer debut novel, Snow White Turtle Doves, is a love story set against the background of the anti-war movement and the 2003 Iraq war. Her second novel Entanglement was published in August 2009 and in August 2010 her third novel Dead Wicked was published. She co-wrote What Women Know which was released in September 2010.\n\nReferences\n\nIrish novelists\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people", "Barada Bhushan Chakraborty (1901 – 5 November 1974) was a revolutionary peasant leader in Bangladesh.\n\nEarly years and education \nBarada was born in Binyafair village, in the Tangail district of what is now Bangladesh in 1901. His father was a priest, Haragopal Chakraborty and mother, an educated lady (up to middle school), Soudamini Devi. Barada Bhushan married Ashalata, younger by 11 years, in 1922.\n\nHe studied primary classes in his village school and then moved to North Bengal's Dinajpur town to study in a middle school, 'Dinajpur Academy'. After his entrance examination, he went to Calcutta, and graduated in Arts from Vidyasagar College of Calcutta University; he received a post graduate degree from the Law College passing LLB. After obtaining the law degree he returned to Dinajpur and started practising in the Dinajpur Bar. (Subsequently, during his political detention for eight years (1930–1938), he passed his MA and also received the title, 'Pandit' after obtaining two degrees in Sanskrit scholastic, 'Rashtrabhasha Visharada' and 'Kavyatirtha' appearing for all the exams from jails.)\n\nPolitical activism during British rule\nBarada Bhushan Chakrabarty was a front line freedom fighter and a member of Anushinal Samity at Dinajpur (Now Bangladesh) He recruited Satyabrata Chakrabarty, Hrishikesh Bhattacharya, Saroj Kumar Basu in Anushilan Samiti. He or his family members were not involved with Hili Mail Dacoity Case which took place in year 1933. He was arrested as suspected in Hili Mail Dacoity Case. But police failed to collect any evidence of his involvement and did not submit charge sheet against him and was released. He spent several years in imprisonment as detenue and for his involvement of freedom movement. His wife Ashalata Chakrabarty was also directly involved in freedom movement and sent to jail.\n \n\nDuring the Quit India movement in 1942 he led Gandhiji's movement in Dinajpur and was jailed for a year. Later he left Gandhiji's path and joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) and remained a dedicated communist till his death. \n\nIn 1946 he, with others from the CPI, organised the most significant peasant movement of Bengal, the Tebhaga Movement. He was in charge of the movement in Dinajpur to control and connect the movement throughout the district. Dinajpur district's movement was one of the fiercest, and many villagers were killed by the British. He was arrested by the British and was kept in jail till India was declared independent and Pakistan was born in 1947.\n\nLater activism\nHe continued to lead the Tebhaga movement in Pakistan after Independence. As a Hindu by birth, he was a soft target of the newly constituted Pakistan. In 1948 Pakistani government arrested him not as a leader of the peasant's unrest but as a security prisoner. After a year he was released but then taken into custody under the Special Powers Ordinance. This time he remained behind bars for a year, and was released on 21.9.51 only to be rearrested the same day under the same ordinance, and imprisoned until July 1952, when the country's Language Movement (Bhasha Adolan) was gaining importance.\n\nBarada Bhushan Chakraborty was a guide to the students of the district who were involved in the Language movement. He was arrested for two years (1954–55), during which the movement was thinning.\n\nWhen General Ayub Khan declared martial law, Barada Bhushan was among the leaders who protested. At this he was taken into custody by the new rulers without a specific charge and kept him in prison for two years. At this, protest erupted in both East and West Pakistan; before the High Court was to decide upon a Habeas Corpus petition on it, he was unconditionally released by the authorities. But when Pakistan and India were engaged in the War of 1965, he was arrested twice and kept in prison for about three years\n\nDuring the Bangladesh Liberation War (Muktijuddha), Barada Bhushan led his district. He was arrested during this time and was placed, along with others, before the firing squad inside the Dinajpur Jail. Fortunately, at this hour the armed freedom fighters (Muktijoddhas) broke in the jail and snatched them out after a brief encounter with the Pakistani army. Thereafter Barada Bhushan remained in charge of the fighters' control room and kept the town free from Pakistani armies for 13 days, until the reinforced army raided the town killing hundreds. Barada Bhushan, along with thousands of the town, took refuge in India, guiding fighters from there. He returned to Bangladesh immediately after the independence, but with a frail health which aggravated his cancer.\n\nBhushan died on 5 November 1974 in Calcutta, where he was brought for cancer treatment with assistance from Mujibur Rahman, the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh.\n\nReferences\n\nBangladeshi activists\n1901 births\n1974 deaths" ]
[ "New Order (band)", "Movement: 1981-1982", "what was Movement?", "With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation,", "what was one of the songs on the album?", "The initial release as New Order was the single \"Ceremony\", backed with \"In a Lonely Place\".", "what year was Movement released?", "1981," ]	C_f4bea434299f44b4810b6d7037af7e7b_1	did it sell well?	4	did Movement sell well?	New Order (band)	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really - for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis; they were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. New Order's integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. They were the flagship band for Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub The Haçienda, and worked in long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville. While the band's early years were overshadowed by the legacy of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released successful albums such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation Substance (1987). They disbanded in 1993 to work on individual projects before reuniting in 1998. In the years since, New Order has gone through various hiatuses and personnel changes, most prominently the departure of Hook in 2007. They released their tenth studio album, Music Complete, in 2015. History Origins and formation: 1977–1980 Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis took his own life on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first American tour, and prior to the release of the band's second album, Closer. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Prior to his death, the members of Joy Division had agreed not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave. On 29 July 1980, the still unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over 20 years, is credited for having found the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. The group states that the name New Order (as was also the case with "Joy Division") does not draw a direct line to National Socialism or Fascism. The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as he could sing when he wasn't playing his guitar. They wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Her first live performance with the band occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. Movement: 1981–1982 The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really – for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984 Power, Corruption & Lies, released in May 1983, was a synthesiser-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album, although the band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12" single of all time in the UK; however, (much to the chagrin of the buying public) it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included however on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies. The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesised single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album. KROQ Los Angeles DJ Jed the Fish claims New Order had more to do with the emergence of house music than the Warehouse music of Chicago and "Frankie Knuckles and the whole so-called House music scene. Unless you were actually from regional Chicago, had you ever heard of House music until New Order? Be real, now." Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987 1985's Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss"—the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme—and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex. Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions. In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvatation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order. Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band were sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who alleged that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver. In 1990, New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion", under the ad hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was the band's sole number one UK hit. The song was originally planned to be titled "E for England", however the Football Association vetoed the title upon realising that this was a reference to ecstasy; a drug heavily associated with the Haçienda. (Allen claimed that his original draft lyrics included "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.") The song also featured chanting from members of the England team and Allen, and a guest rap from England player John Barnes. It was again produced by Stephen Hague, who the band chose to produce their next album. The band's next album Republic was shadowed by the collapse of their longtime label Factory Records. The label had been ailing due to financial difficulties, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1992. New Order never had a formal contract with Factory. Although unusual for a major group, this was Factory's standard practice until the mid-1980s. Because of this, the band, rather than Factory Records, legally owned all of their recordings. This has been cited by Wilson himself as the main reason London Records' 1992 offer to buy the ailing label fell through. Following Factory's collapse, New Order signed with London, as did Morris and Gilbert separately for their side project The Other Two, whose debut album was originally intended for release on Factory. Republic, released around the world in 1993, spawned the singles "Regret"—New Order's highest-charting single in the US—"Ruined in a Day", "World", and "Spooky". Following the release and promotion of Republic, the band put New Order on hold while focusing on side projects; with The Other Two's debut album released in 1993. In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixes of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "1963", and "Round & Round". The new versions of "True Faith" and "1963" (the latter as a more guitar-oriented version produced by Arthur Baker) were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the track listing was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of existing and newly commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc or cassette composed entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was released as a single for a third time to promote the collection. Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003 The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. Nearly five years had passed since they had last seen each other. Sumner said, "We decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out." By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year. In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival. Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and focused on more guitar oriented music. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins played guitar and sang back-up on the track "Turn My Way," and in 2001 toured with the band on dates in the UK, US, and Japan for a short period of time. Phil Cunningham (formerly of Marion) joined the band in a live capacity, deputising for Gilbert who declined to tour in favour of caring for her and Morris' children. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie provided vocals on the track "Rock the Shack". Singles from the album included "Crystal," "60 Miles an Hour" and Someone Like You." In 2002, Q featured New Order on their list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way". Both New Order and Joy Division were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, depicting the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of the Fall and former members of Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, lent a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings. The film touched on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and the Durutti Column. The soundtrack featured the new track "Here to Stay," produced by the Chemical Brothers, which was released as a single. The single's music video highlighted scenes taken from the film. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Singles and second break-up: 2004–2007 The band released a new album on 27 March 2005, titled Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after their children. Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters), and the title track. At the 2005 NME Awards, New Order and Joy Division received the award for "Godlike Geniuses" (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, the Clash, and Happy Mondays. In 2006 the album track "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance Recording. In the autumn of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and contained every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to "Waiting for the Sirens' Call". However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like "Ceremony", "Temptation" and "Confusion") had never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, titled Item, that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for "Temptation '87" and "Ceremony". The New Order: Live in Glasgow DVD was recorded at the Glasgow Academy in 2006 and features 18 tracks, including 4 Joy Division songs. Next to that, the release also contains a bonus disc of footage from the band's personal archive including 1980s footage from Glastonbury (June 1981), Rome, Cork, Rotterdam and Toronto. In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK, Brazil and Argentina. After their Buenos Aires show in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band should stop touring. In early May 2007, Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM – originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party – and stated that "Me and Bernard aren't working together." Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that according to "a source close to the band", "The news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said ... Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order." However, Sumner revealed in 2009 that he no longer wished to make music as New Order. Reunion with new line-up, Lost Sirens and Music Complete: 2011–2016 In September 2011, the band announced that they would perform for the first time since 2006, at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels on 17 October and at the Bataclan, Paris on 18 October. The band's line-up included keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returned to the band after a ten-year break, and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman in place of Peter Hook. They played subsequent shows in London and South America in December, and released Live at the London Troxy, a live album from their performance on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London. They continued to tour throughout 2012, including a short tour of New Zealand and Australia in February/March, and several festival appearances in 2012. New Order performed at Hyde Park with Blur and the Specials to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Lost Sirens was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013. Lost Sirens is an eight-track album of songs recorded during the sessions for Waiting for the Sirens' Call. The album was discussed by Gillian Gilbert in a Brazilian interview to promote the band's appearance in São Paulo. She acknowledged issues with former member Peter Hook, and stated there was "a lot going on behind the scenes on the copyright" delaying the release. The band debuted their first new song since the Waiting for the Sirens' Call sessions, "Singularity", during Lollapalooza Chile in March 2014. In July, the group toured North America, where they debuted another song, "Plastic". On 2 September the band signed to Mute Records. The New Order back catalogue remains with Warner Music. On 22 September 2015, the band released a new album, Music Complete, their first without Peter Hook. The album was produced mostly by the band themselves, except "Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred", both produced by Tom Rowlands, while "Superheated" features additional production by Stuart Price. On 13 May 2016, New Order released a follow-up remix album Complete Music, which consists of extended and reworked mixes of each track from Music Complete. In November 2015, Peter Hook sued Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In an objection, it was revealed that Sumner, Morris and Gilbert had set up a new company behind Hook's back, that it has generated an income of £7.8 million in four years while Hook received only a fraction of that. The three members argued they had treated Hook fairly and that his stake in the band's royalties was reasonable, despite the fact that in four years, Hook had only received "1.25 per cent of the band's royalties and other income from merchandising and performances". The judge ruled that there was "at least a reasonable prospect" of Hook proving that he was not getting a fair share of royalties and other income and rejected Sumner and Morris's lawyer argument. The judge was willing to hear the case but urged the parties to come to an agreement rather than suffer legal costs of around £900,000. On 20 September 2017, the band announced that a full and final settlement had been reached in the dispute. Touring and recent work: 2017–present On 13 July 2017, New Order played a concert at Manchester International Festival with Liam Gillick. On 12 July 2019 the performance was released as a live album titled Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. (Live at MIF). The collaboration between Gillick and New Order was the subject of a documentary feature titled 'New Order: Decades', directed by Mike Christie and broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts and Showtime in the USA. On 23 August 2018, the band played the first date of a North American tour at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota, US. According to the band's official website, other stops on the tour included Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario; Long Beach, California; Kahului, Hawaii; and Honolulu, Hawaii. As of 24 August 2018, a single show in Santiago, Chile had been announced for 21 November 2018. In January 2020, the band played a four night residency in Florida, and in February 2020, they announced a co-headlining tour in North America with the Pet Shop Boys, and that the only concert in the UK in 2020 would be at The O2 on 10 October. These tour dates were later rescheduled for 2021. On 8 September 2020 the band released the single "Be a Rebel" 5 years after their previous release. A music video for the single, directed by NYSU, premiered on YouTube on 2 December. On 11 February 2021, the band announced their plans to release a live album and concert film of their 2018 show at London's Alexandra Palace, directed by Mike Christie. Entitled Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace), it was released on 7 May. Other projects In 1988, Bernard Sumner teamed up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic, also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. Electronic regrouped in 1996 for Raise the Pressure, which also featured Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk). The project's third album Twisted Tenderness was released in 1999 after which the band dissolved. In June 2009, Sumner formed a new band called Bad Lieutenant with Phil Cunningham (guitar) and Jake Evans (guitar and vocals). Their album Never Cry Another Tear was released on 5 October 2009. In addition to Cunningham and Evans the album also features appearances by Stephen Morris (drums), Jack Mitchell (drums), Tom Chapman (bass) and Alex James (bass). The live band included Morris on drums and Tom Chapman on bass. Peter Hook has been involved with several other projects. In the 1990s, Hook recorded with Killing Joke with a view to joining the band. However, original bassist Martin 'Youth' Glover instead returned to the band. In 1995 he toured with the Durutti Column. He has recorded one album with the band Revenge with Davyth Hicks and Chris Jones and two with Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts. Monaco scored a club and alternative radio hit with "What Do You Want From Me?" in 1997. Hook also formed a band called Freebass with fellow bass players Mani (the Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and vocalist Gary Briggs, which was active from 2007 to 2010. He also contributed to Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. Hook's current band Peter Hook and the Light is touring Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. In 1990 Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. The Other Two released its first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991 and released two albums, The Other Two & You in 1993 and Super Highways in 1999. They have also been involved in scoring television soundtracks, like Making Out. In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. BeMusic "BeMusic" was a name the band used for their publishing company (the LP label for Movement says "B Music" in large letters, though using an italic ß for the letter B). All four members of the band used the name for production work for other artists' recordings between 1982 and 1985. The first BeMusic credit was for Peter Hook producing Stockholm Monsters in 1982. Other artists with producer or musician credit for "BeMusic" were 52nd Street, Section 25, Marcel King, Quando Quango, Paul Haig, Thick Pigeon, Nyam Nyam and Life. Their production work as BeMusic was collected on two LTM Recordings compilation CDs, Cool As Ice: The BeMusic Productions and Twice As Nice (which also included production work by Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio, and Arthur Baker). Influences, style and legacy New Order's music mixes rock with dance music, as can be seen on signature tracks such as 1982's "Temptation", 1983's "Blue Monday" and 1987's "True Faith". Founding member Hook stated that the band's shift from playing cold dark tracks from 1981 to producing electro/rock tracks from 1982 was inspired by the music of German electronic group Kraftwerk, US rock band Sparks who had produced disco/electro-rock music with producer Giorgio Moroder on their No. 1 in Heaven album, and also the Moroder/Donna Summer collaboration on "I Feel Love". Along with Kraftwerk, the English bands Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) educated singer Bernard Sumner that one "could make music without guitars". New Order's collaboration with New York DJ Arthur Baker was inspired by the records' sounds of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. According to a staff-written "Allmusic" history, the band are also regarded as "the first alternative dance" music group with their fusion of "used icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop" and were also labeled as synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, dance-rock and electronica. They have heavily influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, and were themselves influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Neu!. They have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house. New Order's Kraftwerk influence was acknowledged by their single "Krafty", which had cover art referencing "Autobahn". Drummer Stephen Morris plays a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases plays along seamlessly with sequenced parts. All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the concert videos Taras Shevchenko (recorded in New York, November 1981) and Pumped Full of Drugs (Tokyo, May 1985). During such live gigs, Sumner alternated between guitar, keyboards, melodica and (on the track "Confusion") bass; Gilbert switched between keyboards and guitar, Morris between drums and keyboards, and Hook played both bass and electronic drums. Taras Shevchenko is also notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song, "Temptation", comes to a complete end. Reputation Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Haçienda. Speaking in 2009, fellow synthpop musician Phil Oakey described New Order's slow-burn career as cult musicians as being unusually prolonged and effective: "If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did." Cover artwork Almost all New Order recordings bear minimalist packaging, art directed by Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (with the exception of the Low-Life album) or even providing basic information such as the band name or title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single), on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or written in a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power, Corruption & Lies). Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling. Saville frequently sent the artwork straight to the printer, unreviewed by either the band or the label. Awards and nominations {\| class=wikitable \|- ! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 1983 \| rowspan="3" \| NME Awards \| Power, Corruption & Lies \| Best Dressed Sleeve \| \|- \| "Blue Monday" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Themselves \| Best Group \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|1988 \| Brit Awards \| "True Faith" \| Best British Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| rowspan=2\|Most Creative Stage Production \| \|- \| 1990 \| \|- \| 1991 \| Ivor Novello Awards \| "World in Motion" \| Best Selling A Side \| \|- \| rowspan=3\|1993 \| Mercury Prize \| Republic \| Album of the Year \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Billboard Music Awards \| Themselves \| Top Modern Rock Tracks Artist \| \|- \| "Regret" \| Top Modern Rock Track \| \|- \|1994 \| D&AD Awards \| "World (The Price of Love)" \| Pop Promo Video \| style="background:#BF8040"\| Wood Pencil \|- \| 1999 \| rowspan=1\|Q Awards \| Themselves \| Q Inspiration Award \| \|- \| 2000 \| ASCAP Pop Music Awards \| "Blue Monday" \| Most Performed Song \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2001 \|Q Awards \| "Crystal" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Žebřík Music Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best International Surprise \| \|- \| 2005 \| NME Awards \| Godlike Genius Award \| \|- \| rowspan="2" \| 2006 \| Grammy Awards \| "Guilt is a Useless Emotion" \| Best Dance Recording \| \|- \| MTV VMAJ \| "Krafty" \| Best Dance Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2012 \| UK Festival Awards \| rowspan="3" \| Themselves \| Headliner of the Year \| \|- \| Artrocker Awards \| Legend Award \| \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 2015 \| rowspan="2" \| Q Awards \| Q Outstanding Contribution To Music \| \|- \| "Restless" \| Best Track \| \|- \|Best Art Vinyl \|Music Complete \| Best Art Vinyl \| \|- \| 2016 \| International Dance Music Awards \| "Plastic" \| Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track \| \|- \| 2019 \| Silver Clef Awards \| Bernard Sumner \| Outstanding Achievement Award \| Band members Current Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, melodica (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Stephen Morris – drums, percussion, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Gillian Gilbert – keyboards, guitars, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2001, 2011–present) Phil Cunningham – guitars, keyboards, electronic percussion (2001–2007, 2011–present) Tom Chapman – bass, keyboards (2011–present) Former Peter Hook – bass, electronic percussion, vocals, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007) Timeline Discography Movement (1981) Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) Low-Life (1985) Brotherhood (1986) Technique (1989) Republic (1993) Get Ready (2001) Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005) Lost Sirens (2013) Music Complete (2015) References Further reading Hickey, Dec. From Heaven to Heaven. New Order Live. The Early Years (1981-1984) at Close Quarters. London: Dec Hickey, 2012. Edge, Brian. New Order + Joy Division: Pleasures and Wayward Distractions. London: Omnibus Press, 1988. Flowers, Claude. New Order + Joy Division: Dreams Never End. London: Omnibus Press, 1995. Johnson, Mark. An Ideal For Living: An History Of Joy Division. London: Bobcat Books, 1984. Middles, Mick. From Joy Division to New Order: The Factory Story. London: Virgin Books, 1996. External links New Order Online – band-endorsed fansite English new wave musical groups English post-punk music groups British synth-pop new wave groups English synth-pop groups Alternative dance musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Brit Award winners Ivor Novello Award winners 1980 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England 1998 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England 2011 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1980 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups reestablished in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2007 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Qwest Records artists Reprise Records artists Mute Records artists Factory Records artists Factory Benelux artists Musical quintets Musical groups from Manchester	false	[ "Assist-2-Sell is an American real estate franchise organization operating in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1987 by Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle E. Martin and is based in Reno, Nevada.\n\nHistory\nAssist-2-Sell was founded in 1987 by Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle E. Martin, who had been conventional real estate agents for 10 years prior to founding Assist-2-Sell. They did not want to spend a significant portion of their time looking for clients so created a discount real estate firm in the hopes that with lower prices, clients would directly come to Assist-2-Sell. Assist-2-Sell is founded in and based in Reno.\n\nAccording to The Commercial Appeal, Assist-2-Sell \"falls between using a traditional real estate firm and selling your home yourself\". The Portland Press Herald said in 2000, \"Word of Assist-2-Sell's rates and reputation has gotten around the realty circle with reaction ranging from skepticism to intimidation.\"\n\nReno Gazette-Journal in 2002 called Assist-2-Sell \"[o]ne of North America's largest residential discount realty companies\". In 2006, it had 630 offices in Canada and 46 American states.\n\nIts main competitor is the company Help-U-Sell. Newsweek said Help-U-Sell and Assist-2-Sell are \"the two largest flat-fee brokerages\" that in 2004 had a combined almost 900 offices.\n\nServices and franchise program\nAssist-2-Sell has two advertising options for clients to choose from. In the first option, \"Direct to Buyer\", the real estate agent acts like a conventional agent by marketing the property and dealing with the documents. In the second option, \"MLS for Less\", sellers get all of the benefits from the previous method as well as having their house listed on the MLS. It advertises houses through newspapers, magazines, mail, and signs, as well as the iHouse2000.com website. The company receives a commission only after a house is sold.\n\nAssist-2-Sell started its franchise program in 1995. Every franchisee is managed and held independently. Assist-2-Sell provides coaching for its franchisees by teaching them how to establish and operate a back office, how to hire real estate agents, how to draw in customers, and how to display houses. In 2004, Assist-2-Sell charged franchisees $19,500 in addition to a 5% cut of each sold home.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nCompanies based in Reno, Nevada\nReal estate companies established in 1987\nFranchises\nReal estate services companies of the United States\n1987 establishments in Nevada", "Helen Charlotte Foxcroft (12 December 1865 – 6 July 1950) was an English historian. \n\nHer Life and Letters of George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax appeared in 1898. It was favourably reviewed though did not sell well. Despite subsequent editions of Halifax's works by Sir Walter Raleigh (1912) and J. P. Kenyon (1969), Foxcroft's was—in the opinion of Basil Greenslade—not superseded until 1989 upon the publication of Mark N. Brown's edition. In 1902 she published A Supplement to Burnet's History of my Own Time and authored, with T. E. S. Clarke, a biography of Gilbert Burnet.\n\nNotes\n\n1865 births\n1950 deaths\nEnglish historians" ]
[ "New Order (band)", "Movement: 1981-1982", "what was Movement?", "With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation,", "what was one of the songs on the album?", "The initial release as New Order was the single \"Ceremony\", backed with \"In a Lonely Place\".", "what year was Movement released?", "1981,", "did it sell well?", "I don't know." ]	C_f4bea434299f44b4810b6d7037af7e7b_1	who was one of the singers on the album?	5	who was one of the singers on Movement?	New Order (band)	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really - for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis; they were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. New Order's integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. They were the flagship band for Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub The Haçienda, and worked in long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville. While the band's early years were overshadowed by the legacy of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released successful albums such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation Substance (1987). They disbanded in 1993 to work on individual projects before reuniting in 1998. In the years since, New Order has gone through various hiatuses and personnel changes, most prominently the departure of Hook in 2007. They released their tenth studio album, Music Complete, in 2015. History Origins and formation: 1977–1980 Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis took his own life on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first American tour, and prior to the release of the band's second album, Closer. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Prior to his death, the members of Joy Division had agreed not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave. On 29 July 1980, the still unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over 20 years, is credited for having found the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. The group states that the name New Order (as was also the case with "Joy Division") does not draw a direct line to National Socialism or Fascism. The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as he could sing when he wasn't playing his guitar. They wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Her first live performance with the band occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. Movement: 1981–1982 The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really – for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984 Power, Corruption & Lies, released in May 1983, was a synthesiser-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album, although the band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12" single of all time in the UK; however, (much to the chagrin of the buying public) it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included however on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies. The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesised single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album. KROQ Los Angeles DJ Jed the Fish claims New Order had more to do with the emergence of house music than the Warehouse music of Chicago and "Frankie Knuckles and the whole so-called House music scene. Unless you were actually from regional Chicago, had you ever heard of House music until New Order? Be real, now." Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987 1985's Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss"—the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme—and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex. Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions. In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvatation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order. Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band were sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who alleged that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver. In 1990, New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion", under the ad hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was the band's sole number one UK hit. The song was originally planned to be titled "E for England", however the Football Association vetoed the title upon realising that this was a reference to ecstasy; a drug heavily associated with the Haçienda. (Allen claimed that his original draft lyrics included "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.") The song also featured chanting from members of the England team and Allen, and a guest rap from England player John Barnes. It was again produced by Stephen Hague, who the band chose to produce their next album. The band's next album Republic was shadowed by the collapse of their longtime label Factory Records. The label had been ailing due to financial difficulties, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1992. New Order never had a formal contract with Factory. Although unusual for a major group, this was Factory's standard practice until the mid-1980s. Because of this, the band, rather than Factory Records, legally owned all of their recordings. This has been cited by Wilson himself as the main reason London Records' 1992 offer to buy the ailing label fell through. Following Factory's collapse, New Order signed with London, as did Morris and Gilbert separately for their side project The Other Two, whose debut album was originally intended for release on Factory. Republic, released around the world in 1993, spawned the singles "Regret"—New Order's highest-charting single in the US—"Ruined in a Day", "World", and "Spooky". Following the release and promotion of Republic, the band put New Order on hold while focusing on side projects; with The Other Two's debut album released in 1993. In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixes of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "1963", and "Round & Round". The new versions of "True Faith" and "1963" (the latter as a more guitar-oriented version produced by Arthur Baker) were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the track listing was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of existing and newly commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc or cassette composed entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was released as a single for a third time to promote the collection. Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003 The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. Nearly five years had passed since they had last seen each other. Sumner said, "We decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out." By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year. In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival. Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and focused on more guitar oriented music. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins played guitar and sang back-up on the track "Turn My Way," and in 2001 toured with the band on dates in the UK, US, and Japan for a short period of time. Phil Cunningham (formerly of Marion) joined the band in a live capacity, deputising for Gilbert who declined to tour in favour of caring for her and Morris' children. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie provided vocals on the track "Rock the Shack". Singles from the album included "Crystal," "60 Miles an Hour" and Someone Like You." In 2002, Q featured New Order on their list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way". Both New Order and Joy Division were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, depicting the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of the Fall and former members of Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, lent a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings. The film touched on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and the Durutti Column. The soundtrack featured the new track "Here to Stay," produced by the Chemical Brothers, which was released as a single. The single's music video highlighted scenes taken from the film. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Singles and second break-up: 2004–2007 The band released a new album on 27 March 2005, titled Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after their children. Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters), and the title track. At the 2005 NME Awards, New Order and Joy Division received the award for "Godlike Geniuses" (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, the Clash, and Happy Mondays. In 2006 the album track "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance Recording. In the autumn of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and contained every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to "Waiting for the Sirens' Call". However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like "Ceremony", "Temptation" and "Confusion") had never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, titled Item, that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for "Temptation '87" and "Ceremony". The New Order: Live in Glasgow DVD was recorded at the Glasgow Academy in 2006 and features 18 tracks, including 4 Joy Division songs. Next to that, the release also contains a bonus disc of footage from the band's personal archive including 1980s footage from Glastonbury (June 1981), Rome, Cork, Rotterdam and Toronto. In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK, Brazil and Argentina. After their Buenos Aires show in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band should stop touring. In early May 2007, Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM – originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party – and stated that "Me and Bernard aren't working together." Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that according to "a source close to the band", "The news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said ... Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order." However, Sumner revealed in 2009 that he no longer wished to make music as New Order. Reunion with new line-up, Lost Sirens and Music Complete: 2011–2016 In September 2011, the band announced that they would perform for the first time since 2006, at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels on 17 October and at the Bataclan, Paris on 18 October. The band's line-up included keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returned to the band after a ten-year break, and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman in place of Peter Hook. They played subsequent shows in London and South America in December, and released Live at the London Troxy, a live album from their performance on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London. They continued to tour throughout 2012, including a short tour of New Zealand and Australia in February/March, and several festival appearances in 2012. New Order performed at Hyde Park with Blur and the Specials to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Lost Sirens was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013. Lost Sirens is an eight-track album of songs recorded during the sessions for Waiting for the Sirens' Call. The album was discussed by Gillian Gilbert in a Brazilian interview to promote the band's appearance in São Paulo. She acknowledged issues with former member Peter Hook, and stated there was "a lot going on behind the scenes on the copyright" delaying the release. The band debuted their first new song since the Waiting for the Sirens' Call sessions, "Singularity", during Lollapalooza Chile in March 2014. In July, the group toured North America, where they debuted another song, "Plastic". On 2 September the band signed to Mute Records. The New Order back catalogue remains with Warner Music. On 22 September 2015, the band released a new album, Music Complete, their first without Peter Hook. The album was produced mostly by the band themselves, except "Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred", both produced by Tom Rowlands, while "Superheated" features additional production by Stuart Price. On 13 May 2016, New Order released a follow-up remix album Complete Music, which consists of extended and reworked mixes of each track from Music Complete. In November 2015, Peter Hook sued Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In an objection, it was revealed that Sumner, Morris and Gilbert had set up a new company behind Hook's back, that it has generated an income of £7.8 million in four years while Hook received only a fraction of that. The three members argued they had treated Hook fairly and that his stake in the band's royalties was reasonable, despite the fact that in four years, Hook had only received "1.25 per cent of the band's royalties and other income from merchandising and performances". The judge ruled that there was "at least a reasonable prospect" of Hook proving that he was not getting a fair share of royalties and other income and rejected Sumner and Morris's lawyer argument. The judge was willing to hear the case but urged the parties to come to an agreement rather than suffer legal costs of around £900,000. On 20 September 2017, the band announced that a full and final settlement had been reached in the dispute. Touring and recent work: 2017–present On 13 July 2017, New Order played a concert at Manchester International Festival with Liam Gillick. On 12 July 2019 the performance was released as a live album titled Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. (Live at MIF). The collaboration between Gillick and New Order was the subject of a documentary feature titled 'New Order: Decades', directed by Mike Christie and broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts and Showtime in the USA. On 23 August 2018, the band played the first date of a North American tour at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota, US. According to the band's official website, other stops on the tour included Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario; Long Beach, California; Kahului, Hawaii; and Honolulu, Hawaii. As of 24 August 2018, a single show in Santiago, Chile had been announced for 21 November 2018. In January 2020, the band played a four night residency in Florida, and in February 2020, they announced a co-headlining tour in North America with the Pet Shop Boys, and that the only concert in the UK in 2020 would be at The O2 on 10 October. These tour dates were later rescheduled for 2021. On 8 September 2020 the band released the single "Be a Rebel" 5 years after their previous release. A music video for the single, directed by NYSU, premiered on YouTube on 2 December. On 11 February 2021, the band announced their plans to release a live album and concert film of their 2018 show at London's Alexandra Palace, directed by Mike Christie. Entitled Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace), it was released on 7 May. Other projects In 1988, Bernard Sumner teamed up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic, also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. Electronic regrouped in 1996 for Raise the Pressure, which also featured Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk). The project's third album Twisted Tenderness was released in 1999 after which the band dissolved. In June 2009, Sumner formed a new band called Bad Lieutenant with Phil Cunningham (guitar) and Jake Evans (guitar and vocals). Their album Never Cry Another Tear was released on 5 October 2009. In addition to Cunningham and Evans the album also features appearances by Stephen Morris (drums), Jack Mitchell (drums), Tom Chapman (bass) and Alex James (bass). The live band included Morris on drums and Tom Chapman on bass. Peter Hook has been involved with several other projects. In the 1990s, Hook recorded with Killing Joke with a view to joining the band. However, original bassist Martin 'Youth' Glover instead returned to the band. In 1995 he toured with the Durutti Column. He has recorded one album with the band Revenge with Davyth Hicks and Chris Jones and two with Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts. Monaco scored a club and alternative radio hit with "What Do You Want From Me?" in 1997. Hook also formed a band called Freebass with fellow bass players Mani (the Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and vocalist Gary Briggs, which was active from 2007 to 2010. He also contributed to Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. Hook's current band Peter Hook and the Light is touring Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. In 1990 Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. The Other Two released its first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991 and released two albums, The Other Two & You in 1993 and Super Highways in 1999. They have also been involved in scoring television soundtracks, like Making Out. In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. BeMusic "BeMusic" was a name the band used for their publishing company (the LP label for Movement says "B Music" in large letters, though using an italic ß for the letter B). All four members of the band used the name for production work for other artists' recordings between 1982 and 1985. The first BeMusic credit was for Peter Hook producing Stockholm Monsters in 1982. Other artists with producer or musician credit for "BeMusic" were 52nd Street, Section 25, Marcel King, Quando Quango, Paul Haig, Thick Pigeon, Nyam Nyam and Life. Their production work as BeMusic was collected on two LTM Recordings compilation CDs, Cool As Ice: The BeMusic Productions and Twice As Nice (which also included production work by Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio, and Arthur Baker). Influences, style and legacy New Order's music mixes rock with dance music, as can be seen on signature tracks such as 1982's "Temptation", 1983's "Blue Monday" and 1987's "True Faith". Founding member Hook stated that the band's shift from playing cold dark tracks from 1981 to producing electro/rock tracks from 1982 was inspired by the music of German electronic group Kraftwerk, US rock band Sparks who had produced disco/electro-rock music with producer Giorgio Moroder on their No. 1 in Heaven album, and also the Moroder/Donna Summer collaboration on "I Feel Love". Along with Kraftwerk, the English bands Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) educated singer Bernard Sumner that one "could make music without guitars". New Order's collaboration with New York DJ Arthur Baker was inspired by the records' sounds of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. According to a staff-written "Allmusic" history, the band are also regarded as "the first alternative dance" music group with their fusion of "used icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop" and were also labeled as synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, dance-rock and electronica. They have heavily influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, and were themselves influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Neu!. They have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house. New Order's Kraftwerk influence was acknowledged by their single "Krafty", which had cover art referencing "Autobahn". Drummer Stephen Morris plays a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases plays along seamlessly with sequenced parts. All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the concert videos Taras Shevchenko (recorded in New York, November 1981) and Pumped Full of Drugs (Tokyo, May 1985). During such live gigs, Sumner alternated between guitar, keyboards, melodica and (on the track "Confusion") bass; Gilbert switched between keyboards and guitar, Morris between drums and keyboards, and Hook played both bass and electronic drums. Taras Shevchenko is also notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song, "Temptation", comes to a complete end. Reputation Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Haçienda. Speaking in 2009, fellow synthpop musician Phil Oakey described New Order's slow-burn career as cult musicians as being unusually prolonged and effective: "If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did." Cover artwork Almost all New Order recordings bear minimalist packaging, art directed by Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (with the exception of the Low-Life album) or even providing basic information such as the band name or title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single), on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or written in a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power, Corruption & Lies). Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling. Saville frequently sent the artwork straight to the printer, unreviewed by either the band or the label. Awards and nominations {\| class=wikitable \|- ! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 1983 \| rowspan="3" \| NME Awards \| Power, Corruption & Lies \| Best Dressed Sleeve \| \|- \| "Blue Monday" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Themselves \| Best Group \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|1988 \| Brit Awards \| "True Faith" \| Best British Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| rowspan=2\|Most Creative Stage Production \| \|- \| 1990 \| \|- \| 1991 \| Ivor Novello Awards \| "World in Motion" \| Best Selling A Side \| \|- \| rowspan=3\|1993 \| Mercury Prize \| Republic \| Album of the Year \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Billboard Music Awards \| Themselves \| Top Modern Rock Tracks Artist \| \|- \| "Regret" \| Top Modern Rock Track \| \|- \|1994 \| D&AD Awards \| "World (The Price of Love)" \| Pop Promo Video \| style="background:#BF8040"\| Wood Pencil \|- \| 1999 \| rowspan=1\|Q Awards \| Themselves \| Q Inspiration Award \| \|- \| 2000 \| ASCAP Pop Music Awards \| "Blue Monday" \| Most Performed Song \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2001 \|Q Awards \| "Crystal" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Žebřík Music Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best International Surprise \| \|- \| 2005 \| NME Awards \| Godlike Genius Award \| \|- \| rowspan="2" \| 2006 \| Grammy Awards \| "Guilt is a Useless Emotion" \| Best Dance Recording \| \|- \| MTV VMAJ \| "Krafty" \| Best Dance Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2012 \| UK Festival Awards \| rowspan="3" \| Themselves \| Headliner of the Year \| \|- \| Artrocker Awards \| Legend Award \| \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 2015 \| rowspan="2" \| Q Awards \| Q Outstanding Contribution To Music \| \|- \| "Restless" \| Best Track \| \|- \|Best Art Vinyl \|Music Complete \| Best Art Vinyl \| \|- \| 2016 \| International Dance Music Awards \| "Plastic" \| Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track \| \|- \| 2019 \| Silver Clef Awards \| Bernard Sumner \| Outstanding Achievement Award \| Band members Current Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, melodica (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Stephen Morris – drums, percussion, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Gillian Gilbert – keyboards, guitars, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2001, 2011–present) Phil Cunningham – guitars, keyboards, electronic percussion (2001–2007, 2011–present) Tom Chapman – bass, keyboards (2011–present) Former Peter Hook – bass, electronic percussion, vocals, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007) Timeline Discography Movement (1981) Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) Low-Life (1985) Brotherhood (1986) Technique (1989) Republic (1993) Get Ready (2001) Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005) Lost Sirens (2013) Music Complete (2015) References Further reading Hickey, Dec. From Heaven to Heaven. New Order Live. The Early Years (1981-1984) at Close Quarters. London: Dec Hickey, 2012. Edge, Brian. New Order + Joy Division: Pleasures and Wayward Distractions. London: Omnibus Press, 1988. Flowers, Claude. New Order + Joy Division: Dreams Never End. London: Omnibus Press, 1995. Johnson, Mark. An Ideal For Living: An History Of Joy Division. London: Bobcat Books, 1984. Middles, Mick. From Joy Division to New Order: The Factory Story. London: Virgin Books, 1996. External links New Order Online – band-endorsed fansite English new wave musical groups English post-punk music groups British synth-pop new wave groups English synth-pop groups Alternative dance musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Brit Award winners Ivor Novello Award winners 1980 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England 1998 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England 2011 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1980 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups reestablished in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2007 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Qwest Records artists Reprise Records artists Mute Records artists Factory Records artists Factory Benelux artists Musical quintets Musical groups from Manchester	false	[ "Dawid Henryk Podsiadło (born 23 May 1993) is a Polish singer-songwriter who won the second series of X Factor in 2012. He received PLN 100,000 and a recording contract with Sony Music. On the show, he was mentored by Tatiana Okupnik.\n\nHis debut album titled Comfort and Happiness was released on 28 May 2013. It debuted at number one on the Polish Albums Chart and was certified triple Platinum the same year, becoming the best-selling album of 2013 in Poland. The album received Diamond certification in 2015.\n\nIn October 2014, Podsiadło released an album with his band Curly Heads. The album, titled Ruby Dress Skinny Dog and produced by Daniel Walczak, debuted at number four on the Polish Albums Chart and was certified Gold.\nThe album was nominated for the 2015 Fryderyk award in the Rock Album of the Year category.\n\nPodsiadło's second solo album, Annoyance and Disappointment, was released on 6 November 2015. The album debuted at number one in Poland and was certified Diamond.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nReissues\n\nLive albums\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nAs featured artist\n\nPromotional singles\n\nOther charted and certified songs\n\nGuest appearances\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\n1993 births\nThe X Factor winners\nPolish pop singers\nPolish rock singers\nEnglish-language singers from Poland\n21st-century Polish male singers\nPeople from Dąbrowa Górnicza", "Julia Marcell (born 1982) is a Polish singer-songwriter and pianist.\n\nCareer\nMarcell was born Julia Górniewicz in Olsztyn, Poland in 1982. Her father, Józef Górniewicz, is a Polish pedagogue and was the dean of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn from 2008 to 2012. She wrote songs since she was 14 years old, and circa 2007 she learned how to play the piano. In 2007, she released her first album, the currently out-of-print extended play Storm.\n\nIn October 2007, with the help of fans from around the world, she obtained a sum of US$50,000 (through the website Sellaband) to record her first studio album. Titled It Might Like You, it was released in Germany in 2009 and produced by Moses Schneider, who previously worked with bands such as Turbostaat, Beatsteaks, Kreator and Tocotronic.\n\nIn 2008, Marcell sang a duet with Cuban American dark cabaret singer Voltaire, named \"This Sea\". The song appears on his album To the Bottom of the Sea. On the same album, Voltaire makes a cover of her song \"Accordion Player\". She collaborated with Voltaire once more in 2014, on his album Raised by Bats, on the track \"The Devil and Mr. Jones\".\n\nOn 3 October 2011 she released a second studio album, entitled June, which brought a big change in style and saw Marcell play with rhythm and expand her sound with the addition of electronic instruments. Junes first single, \"Matrioszka\", was released on 7 August 2011 as a teaser. The music video for \"Matrioszka\" was released on 27 August 2011. The second single for June, \"CTRL\", was released on 30 November 2011. The third single, \"I Wanna Get on Fire\", was released on 20 June 2012, alongside a music video. For June, Marcell was awarded with the prestigious Paszport Polityki prize in 2011, in the \"Popular Music\" category, and in 2012 she was nominated to seven Fryderyks, winning one of them.\n\nIn 2013 she collaborated with theatre director Krzysztof Garbaczewski by providing the music to his adaptations of Marcin Cecko's Kamienne niebo zamiast gwiazd and Witold Gombrowicz's Kronos.\n\nIn 2014 she composed the soundtrack of Przemysław Wojcieszek's film Jak całkowicie zniknąć.\n\nHer third studio album, Sentiments, was released on 6 October 2014. On 10 September 2014 she released a music video for one of the tracks that would appear on the album, \"Manners\".\n\nOn 5 January 2016 Marcell announced on her official Facebook page that she began work on her fourth album, Proxy, which was eventually released on 11 March 2016. On the same day she released the promotional single \"Andrew\" on iTunes.\n\nMarcell currently resides in Berlin, Germany.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1982 births\nLiving people\nPolish keyboardists\nPolish guitarists\nMystic Production artists\nPolish pop singers\nEnglish-language singers from Poland\n21st-century Polish singers\n21st-century Polish women singers\n21st-century guitarists" ]
[ "New Order (band)", "Movement: 1981-1982", "what was Movement?", "With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation,", "what was one of the songs on the album?", "The initial release as New Order was the single \"Ceremony\", backed with \"In a Lonely Place\".", "what year was Movement released?", "1981,", "did it sell well?", "I don't know.", "who was one of the singers on the album?", "I don't know." ]	C_f4bea434299f44b4810b6d7037af7e7b_1	how many tracks were on it?	6	how many tracks were on Movement?	New Order (band)	The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really - for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Hacienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis; they were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. New Order's integration of post-punk with electronic and dance music made them one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s. They were the flagship band for Manchester-based independent record label Factory Records and its nightclub The Haçienda, and worked in long-term collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville. While the band's early years were overshadowed by the legacy of Joy Division, their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday" became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the 1980s, they released successful albums such as Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), Technique (1989), and the singles compilation Substance (1987). They disbanded in 1993 to work on individual projects before reuniting in 1998. In the years since, New Order has gone through various hiatuses and personnel changes, most prominently the departure of Hook in 2007. They released their tenth studio album, Music Complete, in 2015. History Origins and formation: 1977–1980 Between 1977 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer Martin Hannett. Curtis took his own life on 18 May 1980, the day before Joy Division were scheduled to depart for their first American tour, and prior to the release of the band's second album, Closer. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Prior to his death, the members of Joy Division had agreed not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave. On 29 July 1980, the still unnamed trio debuted live at Manchester's Beach Club. Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over 20 years, is credited for having found the name New Order in an article in The Guardian titled "The People's New Order of Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for former Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. The group states that the name New Order (as was also the case with "Joy Division") does not draw a direct line to National Socialism or Fascism. The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as he could sing when he wasn't playing his guitar. They wanted to complete the line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own. Gretton suggested Morris's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert, and she was invited to join the band in early October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Her first live performance with the band occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980. Movement: 1981–1982 The initial release as New Order was the single "Ceremony", backed with "In a Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesisers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the Movement sessions was that producer Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on. More recently, Hook indicated a change of heart: "I think Movement gets a raw deal in general really – for me, when you consider the circumstances in which it was written, it is a fantastic record." New Order visited New York City again in 1981, where the band were introduced to post-disco, freestyle and electro. The band had taken to listening to Italian disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "Everything's Gone Green" and "Temptation", saw a change in direction toward dance music. The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order) opened in May 1982 in Manchester and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. The opening of UK's first ever superclub was marked by a nearly 23-minute instrumental piece originally entitled "Prime 5 8 6", but released 15 years later as "Video 5 8 6". Composed primarily by Sumner and Morris, "Prime 5 8 6"/"Video 5 8 6" was an early version of "5 8 6" that contained rhythm elements that would later surface on "Blue Monday" and "Ultraviolence". Power, Corruption & Lies: 1983–1984 Power, Corruption & Lies, released in May 1983, was a synthesiser-based outing and a dramatic change in sound from Joy Division and the preceding album, although the band had been hinting at the increased use of technology during the music-making process for a number of years then, including their work as Joy Division. Starting from what earlier singles had hinted, this was where the band had found their footing, mixing early techno music with their earlier guitar-based sound and showing the strong influence of acts like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Even further in this direction was the electronically sequenced, four-on-the-floor single "Blue Monday". Inspired by Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk" and Sylvester's disco classic, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Blue Monday" became the best-selling independent 12" single of all time in the UK; however, (much to the chagrin of the buying public) it was not on the track list of Power, Corruption & Lies. The song was included however on the cassette format in some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and on the original North American CD release of the album, alongside its B-side, "The Beach". "Blue Monday" was also included on the 2008 collector's edition of Power, Corruption & Lies. The 1983 single "Confusion" firmly established the group as a dance music force, inspiring many musicians in subsequent years. In 1984 they followed the largely synthesised single "Thieves Like Us" with the heavy guitar-drum-bass rumble of "Murder", a not-too-distant cousin of "Ecstasy" from the Power, Corruption & Lies album. KROQ Los Angeles DJ Jed the Fish claims New Order had more to do with the emergence of house music than the Warehouse music of Chicago and "Frankie Knuckles and the whole so-called House music scene. Unless you were actually from regional Chicago, had you ever heard of House music until New Order? Be real, now." Low-Life, Brotherhood, and Substance: 1985–1987 1985's Low-Life refined and sometimes mixed the two styles, guitar-based and electronic, and included "The Perfect Kiss"—the video for which was filmed by Jonathan Demme—and "Sub-culture". In February 1986, the soundtrack album to Pretty in Pink featuring "Shellshock" was released on A&M Records. An instrumental version of "Thieves Like Us" and the instrumental "Elegia" appeared in the film but were not on the soundtrack album. Later that summer, New Order headlined a line-up that included the Smiths, the Fall, and A Certain Ratio during the Festival of the Tenth Summer at Manchester's G-Mex. Brotherhood (1986) divided the two approaches onto separate album sides. The album notably featured "Bizarre Love Triangle" (a Top 20 hit in Australia and New Zealand) and "Angel Dust" (of which a remixed instrumental version is available on the UK "True Faith" CD video single, under the title "Evil Dust"), a track which marries a synth break beat with Low-Life-era guitar effects. While New Order toured North America with friends Echo & the Bunnymen, the summer of 1987 saw the release of the compilation Substance, which featured the new single "True Faith". Substance was an important album in collecting the group's 12-inch singles onto CD for the first time and featured new versions of "Temptation" and "Confusion"—referred to as "Temptation '87" and "Confusion '87". A second disc featured several of the B-sides from the singles on the first disc, as well as additional A-sides "Procession" and "Murder". The single, "True Faith", with its surreal video, became a hit on MTV and the band's first American top 40 hit. The single's B-side, "1963"—originally planned on being the A-side until the group's label convinced them to release "True Faith" instead—would later be released as a single in its own right several years later, with two new versions. In December 1987, the band released a further single, "Touched by the Hand of God", with a Kathryn Bigelow-directed video parodying glam-metal. The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvatation!, and reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in the UK Independent Singles chart. However, it would not appear on an album until the 1994 compilation The Best of New Order. Technique, Republic and first break-up: 1988–1993 By this time, the group was heavily influenced by the Balearic sounds of Ibiza, which were making their way into the Haçienda. Partly recorded at Mediterranean Sound studios on Ibiza, Technique was released in February 1989. The album entered the charts at number one in the UK and contained a mix of acid house influence (as on opening track "Fine Time") and a more traditional rock sound (as on the single "Run 2"). The album is a blend of upbeat, accessible music coupled with blunt, poignant lyrics. During the summer of 1989, New Order supported Technique by touring with Public Image Ltd, Throwing Muses and the Sugarcubes across the United States and Canada in what the press dubbed the "Monsters of Alternative Rock" tour. Around this time, band members also began side projects including Electronic (Sumner with Johnny Marr) and Revenge (Hook with Davyth Hicks). Morris and Gilbert began to work together on outside TV theme production work. In 1991, the band were sued by the publishing company of American singer John Denver, who alleged that the guitar break in "Run 2" was similar to his song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The case was settled out of court and the song has since been credited to both New Order and John Denver. In 1990, New Order recorded the official song of the England national football team's 1990 World Cup campaign, "World in Motion", under the ad hoc band name EnglandNewOrder. The song, co-written with comedian Keith Allen, was the band's sole number one UK hit. The song was originally planned to be titled "E for England", however the Football Association vetoed the title upon realising that this was a reference to ecstasy; a drug heavily associated with the Haçienda. (Allen claimed that his original draft lyrics included "E is for England, England starts with E / We'll all be smiling when we're in Italy.") The song also featured chanting from members of the England team and Allen, and a guest rap from England player John Barnes. It was again produced by Stephen Hague, who the band chose to produce their next album. The band's next album Republic was shadowed by the collapse of their longtime label Factory Records. The label had been ailing due to financial difficulties, and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1992. New Order never had a formal contract with Factory. Although unusual for a major group, this was Factory's standard practice until the mid-1980s. Because of this, the band, rather than Factory Records, legally owned all of their recordings. This has been cited by Wilson himself as the main reason London Records' 1992 offer to buy the ailing label fell through. Following Factory's collapse, New Order signed with London, as did Morris and Gilbert separately for their side project The Other Two, whose debut album was originally intended for release on Factory. Republic, released around the world in 1993, spawned the singles "Regret"—New Order's highest-charting single in the US—"Ruined in a Day", "World", and "Spooky". Following the release and promotion of Republic, the band put New Order on hold while focusing on side projects; with The Other Two's debut album released in 1993. In 1994, a second singles collection was released, entitled The Best of New Order. It featured all of the band's singles since Substance as well as a few extra tracks: "Vanishing Point" (from 1989's Technique), "The Perfect Kiss", "Thieves Like Us", "Shellshock", and remixes of "True Faith", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "1963", and "Round & Round". The new versions of "True Faith" and "1963" (the latter as a more guitar-oriented version produced by Arthur Baker) were released as singles to promote the album. In the US, the track listing was altered to set it apart from Substance as well as the UK release of The Best of New Order which had been available months prior. This collection was followed by a remix album, The Rest of New Order, featuring a selection of existing and newly commissioned mixes of classic New Order tracks. Some versions contained an extra disc or cassette composed entirely of remixes of "Blue Monday". "Blue Monday" was released as a single for a third time to promote the collection. Reformation and Get Ready: 1998–2003 The group reconvened in 1998 at the suggestion of Rob Gretton. Nearly five years had passed since they had last seen each other. Sumner said, "We decided before we agreed to doing any gig, to have a meeting, and if anyone had any grudges to bear, to iron them out." By the second meeting everyone agreed to continue playing, scheduling their reunion gig for the Phoenix Festival that same year. In addition to rarer songs, New Order also decided to begin playing Joy Division songs again. When the Phoenix Festival was cancelled due to low ticket sales, New Order instead played the last night of that year's Reading Festival. Their 2001 release Get Ready largely departed from their more electronic style and focused on more guitar oriented music. According to Sumner, "Get Ready was guitar-heavy simply because we felt that we'd left that instrument alone for a long time." Longtime fan Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins played guitar and sang back-up on the track "Turn My Way," and in 2001 toured with the band on dates in the UK, US, and Japan for a short period of time. Phil Cunningham (formerly of Marion) joined the band in a live capacity, deputising for Gilbert who declined to tour in favour of caring for her and Morris' children. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie provided vocals on the track "Rock the Shack". Singles from the album included "Crystal," "60 Miles an Hour" and Someone Like You." In 2002, Q featured New Order on their list of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way". Both New Order and Joy Division were portrayed in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, depicting the rise and fall of Factory Records as seen through the eyes of label founder Tony Wilson. Cameos by Wilson himself, along with Mark E. Smith of the Fall and former members of Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets, lent a degree of legitimacy to the proceedings. The film touched on some of Factory's other artists, including Happy Mondays and the Durutti Column. The soundtrack featured the new track "Here to Stay," produced by the Chemical Brothers, which was released as a single. The single's music video highlighted scenes taken from the film. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Singles and second break-up: 2004–2007 The band released a new album on 27 March 2005, titled Waiting for the Sirens' Call, their first with new member Phil Cunningham. Cunningham replaced Gilbert (now married to Morris) so she could look after their children. Singles from this album were "Krafty", "Jetstream" (which features guest vocals by Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters), and the title track. At the 2005 NME Awards, New Order and Joy Division received the award for "Godlike Geniuses" (for lifetime achievement). Previous winners include Ozzy Osbourne, the Clash, and Happy Mondays. In 2006 the album track "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance Recording. In the autumn of 2005, the group released another greatest hits compilation, in the form of Singles. The two-disc release was an updated version of the Substance collection and contained every single released from their 1981 debut all the way through to "Waiting for the Sirens' Call". However, unlike Substance, which focused almost exclusively on the 12" versions of the group's singles, Singles collected the 7" versions, many of which (like "Ceremony", "Temptation" and "Confusion") had never been released on CD. The album was accompanied by a two-disc DVD set, titled Item, that collected the extended UK version of NewOrderStory with a DVD of all New Order music videos as well as two newly commissioned videos for "Temptation '87" and "Ceremony". The New Order: Live in Glasgow DVD was recorded at the Glasgow Academy in 2006 and features 18 tracks, including 4 Joy Division songs. Next to that, the release also contains a bonus disc of footage from the band's personal archive including 1980s footage from Glastonbury (June 1981), Rome, Cork, Rotterdam and Toronto. In 2006, the band played several one-off live dates as well as short tours in the UK, Brazil and Argentina. After their Buenos Aires show in November 2006, Peter Hook suggested that the band should stop touring. In early May 2007, Hook was interviewed by British radio station XFM – originally to talk about his contribution to the debut album of Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell's new band Satellite Party – and stated that "Me and Bernard aren't working together." Further complicating the news, NewOrderOnline, a website with support from New Order management, reported that according to "a source close to the band", "The news about the split is false... New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said ... Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn't mean the end of New Order." However, Sumner revealed in 2009 that he no longer wished to make music as New Order. Reunion with new line-up, Lost Sirens and Music Complete: 2011–2016 In September 2011, the band announced that they would perform for the first time since 2006, at the Ancienne Belgique, Brussels on 17 October and at the Bataclan, Paris on 18 October. The band's line-up included keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who returned to the band after a ten-year break, and Bad Lieutenant bassist Tom Chapman in place of Peter Hook. They played subsequent shows in London and South America in December, and released Live at the London Troxy, a live album from their performance on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London. They continued to tour throughout 2012, including a short tour of New Zealand and Australia in February/March, and several festival appearances in 2012. New Order performed at Hyde Park with Blur and the Specials to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Lost Sirens was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013. Lost Sirens is an eight-track album of songs recorded during the sessions for Waiting for the Sirens' Call. The album was discussed by Gillian Gilbert in a Brazilian interview to promote the band's appearance in São Paulo. She acknowledged issues with former member Peter Hook, and stated there was "a lot going on behind the scenes on the copyright" delaying the release. The band debuted their first new song since the Waiting for the Sirens' Call sessions, "Singularity", during Lollapalooza Chile in March 2014. In July, the group toured North America, where they debuted another song, "Plastic". On 2 September the band signed to Mute Records. The New Order back catalogue remains with Warner Music. On 22 September 2015, the band released a new album, Music Complete, their first without Peter Hook. The album was produced mostly by the band themselves, except "Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred", both produced by Tom Rowlands, while "Superheated" features additional production by Stuart Price. On 13 May 2016, New Order released a follow-up remix album Complete Music, which consists of extended and reworked mixes of each track from Music Complete. In November 2015, Peter Hook sued Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In an objection, it was revealed that Sumner, Morris and Gilbert had set up a new company behind Hook's back, that it has generated an income of £7.8 million in four years while Hook received only a fraction of that. The three members argued they had treated Hook fairly and that his stake in the band's royalties was reasonable, despite the fact that in four years, Hook had only received "1.25 per cent of the band's royalties and other income from merchandising and performances". The judge ruled that there was "at least a reasonable prospect" of Hook proving that he was not getting a fair share of royalties and other income and rejected Sumner and Morris's lawyer argument. The judge was willing to hear the case but urged the parties to come to an agreement rather than suffer legal costs of around £900,000. On 20 September 2017, the band announced that a full and final settlement had been reached in the dispute. Touring and recent work: 2017–present On 13 July 2017, New Order played a concert at Manchester International Festival with Liam Gillick. On 12 July 2019 the performance was released as a live album titled Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. (Live at MIF). The collaboration between Gillick and New Order was the subject of a documentary feature titled 'New Order: Decades', directed by Mike Christie and broadcast in the UK by Sky Arts and Showtime in the USA. On 23 August 2018, the band played the first date of a North American tour at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul Minnesota, US. According to the band's official website, other stops on the tour included Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario; Long Beach, California; Kahului, Hawaii; and Honolulu, Hawaii. As of 24 August 2018, a single show in Santiago, Chile had been announced for 21 November 2018. In January 2020, the band played a four night residency in Florida, and in February 2020, they announced a co-headlining tour in North America with the Pet Shop Boys, and that the only concert in the UK in 2020 would be at The O2 on 10 October. These tour dates were later rescheduled for 2021. On 8 September 2020 the band released the single "Be a Rebel" 5 years after their previous release. A music video for the single, directed by NYSU, premiered on YouTube on 2 December. On 11 February 2021, the band announced their plans to release a live album and concert film of their 2018 show at London's Alexandra Palace, directed by Mike Christie. Entitled Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace), it was released on 7 May. Other projects In 1988, Bernard Sumner teamed up with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic, also enlisting the help of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys. Electronic regrouped in 1996 for Raise the Pressure, which also featured Karl Bartos (formerly of Kraftwerk). The project's third album Twisted Tenderness was released in 1999 after which the band dissolved. In June 2009, Sumner formed a new band called Bad Lieutenant with Phil Cunningham (guitar) and Jake Evans (guitar and vocals). Their album Never Cry Another Tear was released on 5 October 2009. In addition to Cunningham and Evans the album also features appearances by Stephen Morris (drums), Jack Mitchell (drums), Tom Chapman (bass) and Alex James (bass). The live band included Morris on drums and Tom Chapman on bass. Peter Hook has been involved with several other projects. In the 1990s, Hook recorded with Killing Joke with a view to joining the band. However, original bassist Martin 'Youth' Glover instead returned to the band. In 1995 he toured with the Durutti Column. He has recorded one album with the band Revenge with Davyth Hicks and Chris Jones and two with Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts. Monaco scored a club and alternative radio hit with "What Do You Want From Me?" in 1997. Hook also formed a band called Freebass with fellow bass players Mani (the Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (the Smiths) and vocalist Gary Briggs, which was active from 2007 to 2010. He also contributed to Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. Hook's current band Peter Hook and the Light is touring Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. In 1990 Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. The Other Two released its first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991 and released two albums, The Other Two & You in 1993 and Super Highways in 1999. They have also been involved in scoring television soundtracks, like Making Out. In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. BeMusic "BeMusic" was a name the band used for their publishing company (the LP label for Movement says "B Music" in large letters, though using an italic ß for the letter B). All four members of the band used the name for production work for other artists' recordings between 1982 and 1985. The first BeMusic credit was for Peter Hook producing Stockholm Monsters in 1982. Other artists with producer or musician credit for "BeMusic" were 52nd Street, Section 25, Marcel King, Quando Quango, Paul Haig, Thick Pigeon, Nyam Nyam and Life. Their production work as BeMusic was collected on two LTM Recordings compilation CDs, Cool As Ice: The BeMusic Productions and Twice As Nice (which also included production work by Donald Johnson, of A Certain Ratio, and Arthur Baker). Influences, style and legacy New Order's music mixes rock with dance music, as can be seen on signature tracks such as 1982's "Temptation", 1983's "Blue Monday" and 1987's "True Faith". Founding member Hook stated that the band's shift from playing cold dark tracks from 1981 to producing electro/rock tracks from 1982 was inspired by the music of German electronic group Kraftwerk, US rock band Sparks who had produced disco/electro-rock music with producer Giorgio Moroder on their No. 1 in Heaven album, and also the Moroder/Donna Summer collaboration on "I Feel Love". Along with Kraftwerk, the English bands Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) educated singer Bernard Sumner that one "could make music without guitars". New Order's collaboration with New York DJ Arthur Baker was inspired by the records' sounds of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. According to a staff-written "Allmusic" history, the band are also regarded as "the first alternative dance" music group with their fusion of "used icy, gloomy post-punk with Kraftwerk-style synth-pop" and were also labeled as synth-pop, post-punk, new wave, dance-rock and electronica. They have heavily influenced techno, rock, and pop musicians including Moby, and were themselves influenced by the likes of David Bowie and Neu!. They have also significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house. New Order's Kraftwerk influence was acknowledged by their single "Krafty", which had cover art referencing "Autobahn". Drummer Stephen Morris plays a mixture of acoustic and electronic drums, and in many cases plays along seamlessly with sequenced parts. All the band members could and did switch instruments throughout gigs, as evidenced on Jonathan Demme's video for "The Perfect Kiss" and the concert videos Taras Shevchenko (recorded in New York, November 1981) and Pumped Full of Drugs (Tokyo, May 1985). During such live gigs, Sumner alternated between guitar, keyboards, melodica and (on the track "Confusion") bass; Gilbert switched between keyboards and guitar, Morris between drums and keyboards, and Hook played both bass and electronic drums. Taras Shevchenko is also notable for the fact all four members of the group have left the stage before the final song, "Temptation", comes to a complete end. Reputation Both New Order and Joy Division were among the most successful artists on the Factory Records label, run by Granada television personality Tony Wilson, and partnered with Factory in the financing of the Manchester club The Haçienda. Speaking in 2009, fellow synthpop musician Phil Oakey described New Order's slow-burn career as cult musicians as being unusually prolonged and effective: "If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did." Cover artwork Almost all New Order recordings bear minimalist packaging, art directed by Peter Saville. The group's record sleeves bucked the 1980s trend by rarely showing the band members (with the exception of the Low-Life album) or even providing basic information such as the band name or title of the release. Song names were often hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either on the disc itself (such as the "Blue Monday" single), on an inconspicuous part of an inner sleeve ("The Perfect Kiss" single), or written in a cryptic colour code invented by Saville (Power, Corruption & Lies). Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify the band's products without explicit labelling. Saville frequently sent the artwork straight to the printer, unreviewed by either the band or the label. Awards and nominations {\| class=wikitable \|- ! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 1983 \| rowspan="3" \| NME Awards \| Power, Corruption & Lies \| Best Dressed Sleeve \| \|- \| "Blue Monday" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Themselves \| Best Group \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|1988 \| Brit Awards \| "True Faith" \| Best British Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| rowspan=2\|Most Creative Stage Production \| \|- \| 1990 \| \|- \| 1991 \| Ivor Novello Awards \| "World in Motion" \| Best Selling A Side \| \|- \| rowspan=3\|1993 \| Mercury Prize \| Republic \| Album of the Year \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|Billboard Music Awards \| Themselves \| Top Modern Rock Tracks Artist \| \|- \| "Regret" \| Top Modern Rock Track \| \|- \|1994 \| D&AD Awards \| "World (The Price of Love)" \| Pop Promo Video \| style="background:#BF8040"\| Wood Pencil \|- \| 1999 \| rowspan=1\|Q Awards \| Themselves \| Q Inspiration Award \| \|- \| 2000 \| ASCAP Pop Music Awards \| "Blue Monday" \| Most Performed Song \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2001 \|Q Awards \| "Crystal" \| Best Single \| \|- \| Žebřík Music Awards \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best International Surprise \| \|- \| 2005 \| NME Awards \| Godlike Genius Award \| \|- \| rowspan="2" \| 2006 \| Grammy Awards \| "Guilt is a Useless Emotion" \| Best Dance Recording \| \|- \| MTV VMAJ \| "Krafty" \| Best Dance Video \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2012 \| UK Festival Awards \| rowspan="3" \| Themselves \| Headliner of the Year \| \|- \| Artrocker Awards \| Legend Award \| \|- \| rowspan="3" \| 2015 \| rowspan="2" \| Q Awards \| Q Outstanding Contribution To Music \| \|- \| "Restless" \| Best Track \| \|- \|Best Art Vinyl \|Music Complete \| Best Art Vinyl \| \|- \| 2016 \| International Dance Music Awards \| "Plastic" \| Best Alternative/Rock Dance Track \| \|- \| 2019 \| Silver Clef Awards \| Bernard Sumner \| Outstanding Achievement Award \| Band members Current Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, melodica (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Stephen Morris – drums, percussion, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007, 2011–present) Gillian Gilbert – keyboards, guitars, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2001, 2011–present) Phil Cunningham – guitars, keyboards, electronic percussion (2001–2007, 2011–present) Tom Chapman – bass, keyboards (2011–present) Former Peter Hook – bass, electronic percussion, vocals, keyboards, programming (1980–1993, 1998–2007) Timeline Discography Movement (1981) Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) Low-Life (1985) Brotherhood (1986) Technique (1989) Republic (1993) Get Ready (2001) Waiting for the Sirens' Call (2005) Lost Sirens (2013) Music Complete (2015) References Further reading Hickey, Dec. From Heaven to Heaven. New Order Live. The Early Years (1981-1984) at Close Quarters. London: Dec Hickey, 2012. Edge, Brian. New Order + Joy Division: Pleasures and Wayward Distractions. London: Omnibus Press, 1988. Flowers, Claude. New Order + Joy Division: Dreams Never End. London: Omnibus Press, 1995. Johnson, Mark. An Ideal For Living: An History Of Joy Division. London: Bobcat Books, 1984. Middles, Mick. From Joy Division to New Order: The Factory Story. London: Virgin Books, 1996. External links New Order Online – band-endorsed fansite English new wave musical groups English post-punk music groups British synth-pop new wave groups English synth-pop groups Alternative dance musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Brit Award winners Ivor Novello Award winners 1980 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England 1998 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England 2011 establishments in England Musical groups established in 1980 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups reestablished in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2007 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Qwest Records artists Reprise Records artists Mute Records artists Factory Records artists Factory Benelux artists Musical quintets Musical groups from Manchester	false	[ "Meisterwerk 1 is a compilation album by My Dying Bride, which features both album tracks and rare recordings. Its\ncompanion piece - Meisterwerk 2 - was released the following year. It is the second of four My Dying Bride compilation albums, following 1995's Trinity and followed by Meisterwerk 2 later the same year and \"Anti-Diluvian Chronicles\" in 2005.\n\nTrack listing \n\n Some copies contain the Album \"The Light at the End of the World\" and not \"Meisterwerk 1\", The disc has the made in E.U. blacked out and it is unknown how many were pressed.\n\nCredits \n\n Aaron Stainthorpe - vocals, all tracks\n Andrew Craighan - guitar, all tracks (bass on tracks 1,3)\n Calvin Robertshaw - guitar on tracks 1-7,9\n Hamish Glencross - guitar on track 8\n Adrian Jackson - bass, track 2,4-9\n Martin Powell - violin, keyboard, tracks 1-7,9\n Rick Miah - drums on tracks 1-7,9\n Shaun Steels - drums on track 8\n Jonny Maudling - keyboard on track 8\n\nReferences\n\nMy Dying Bride compilation albums\n2000 compilation albums", "Amy Holland is singer Amy Holland's self-titled debut album. The album was released on LP record in 1980, and was produced by Amy's future husband Michael McDonald. One of the songs on the album \"How Do I Survive\" (a song originally sung by The Paul Bliss Band) became a big hit and made it to the Top 30 chart. Amy Holland would often perform \"How Do I Survive\" live on music TV shows such as Music Fair (a Japanese music show) and Young Oh! Oh!. Those live performances of the song can be found on YouTube. Holland mostly recorded some song covers for this album, with one of them being Annette Hanshaw's 1928 jazz-standard Forgetting You The success of the song How Do I Survive helped Amy earn a Grammy Nomination for Best New Artist in 1981, but she did not win the award however. Some of the songs on the album have been written by Michael McDonald such as \"Here In The Light\" and \"Show Me the Way Home\". \"How Do I Survive\" was a hit peaking at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100. Three years later Amy would release another studio album called On Your Every Word.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n\nMusicians\nAmy Holland – main artist, lead vocals, and backing vocals on tracks A1 and A3 to B3\nHadley Hockensmith – guitar on tracks A1 to A5 and B3 to B5\nPatrick Henderson – piano on tracks A1, A2, and A5 to B4, and electric piano on tracks A3, A4, and B5\nMichael McDonald - backing vocals on tracks A1, A3, A4, and B1, piano on tracks A3 and B5, electric piano on tracks A1, A2, and A5 to B4, and clavinet on \"I'm Wondering\"\nGary Grant – trumpet on tracks: A1, A5, and B4\nOllie Mitchell – trumpet on tracks A1, A5, and B4\nPlas Johnson – saxophone on tracks: A1, A5, and B4\nTom Scott – saxophone on tracks A1, A5, B3, and B4, and lyricon on \"Stars\"\nDick Hyde – trombone on tracks A1, A5, and B4\nJohn Bay Pierce – bass on tracks A1, A3, A4, B3, and B5\nMike Baird – drums on tracks A1 to A5 and B3 to B5\nLenny Castro – percussion on tracks A1, A3, A4, B1, and B2\nWendy Waldman – backing vocals on \"How Do I Survive\"\nChet McCracken – vibraphone on tracks A2 and A4\nDonald Boyette – bass on tracks A2 and B4\nCharity and Linda McCrary – backing vocals on \"Strengthen My Love\"\nCornelius Bumpus – saxophone on \"Strengthen My Love\"\nBill Payne – synthesizer on tracks A3 and A4\nNick DeCaro – strings on tracks A3 to A5 and B5\nBill Martin – backing vocals on tracks A3, B2, and B3\nMaureen MacDonald – backing vocals on \"Here in the Light\"\nNorton Buffalo – harmonica on tracks A5 and B1\nMichael Porcaro – bass on \"Don't Kid Yourself\"\nJim Petteway – guitar on tracks B1 and B2\nTrey Thompson – bass on tracks B1 and B2\nMichael Hossack – drums on tracks B1 and B2\nJohn McFee – steel guitar on tracks B2 and B3, and acoustic guitar on \"Looking for Love\"\nBrian Mann – accordion on \"Forgetting You\"\n\nProduction\nMichael McDonald - producer\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1980 debut albums\nAmy Holland albums\nCapitol Records albums" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)" ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	Was Subhuman race an album?	1	Was Subhuman race an album?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	false	[ "Subhuman Race (stylized sUBHUMAN rACE) is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Skid Row, released on March 28, 1995, by Atlantic Records. This is the last Skid Row album with singer Sebastian Bach and drummer Rob Affuso, and the last one to be released on Atlantic. Despite receiving positive reviews, Subhuman Race was not as successful as the band's first two albums. Certain tracks from the album were remixed for the band's compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row, given more tender, slightly cleaner mixes to fit better with the other tracks.\n\nOverview\nReleased during the decline of hard rock and heavy metal, Subhuman Race marked a significant change in the band's sound, with Bob Rock replacing Michael Wagener as its producer, and resembling a mixture of heavy metal with grunge, alternative, punk rock, thrash metal and groove metal influences. It has also been noted as more of a dark album than previous works.\n\nTo promote Subhuman Race, Skid Row supported Van Halen in North America on their Balance tour. Following the album and tour, they released a live EP titled Subhuman Beings on Tour, featuring live performances from the Subhuman Race tour. The band has not played any songs from Subhuman Race since the album's tour in 1995–1996, though Bach has occasionally played them on his solo tours, including \"Beat Yourself Blind\", \"Frozen\", and the singles \"My Enemy\", \"Into Another\" and \"Breakin' Down\". \"Beat Yourself Blind\" was the only song from this album to be performed live since Bach's departure, until ZP Theart performed \"Medicine Jar\" in 2018, while \"Remains to Be Seen\" has never been played live once.\n\nThe album debuted at #35 on the Billboard 200, staying for nine weeks, being a significant drop off from Slave to the Grind's #1 debut. By 1999, Subhuman Race has sold 165,424 copies, falling significantly behind their previous records.\n\nCritical reception\n\nSubhuman Race received mixed to mostly positive reviews from music critics. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it saw the band \"strip back their music to the basics\" and was their \"strongest and most vicious record to date.\" Rolling Stone reviewer called it \"the freshest riffage since last year's Soundgarden record\" and also noted the \"tight, hot guitar lines and radio hooks that burn themselves into your brain\". Q praised both the guitars that \"grumble and mutter more menacingly than ever\" and Bach's \"awesome vocal pyrotechnics\", summarizing that \"Skid Row has come up with an outright winner.\" Canadian journalist Martin Popoff found the album quite complex, with Skid Row \"absorbing the best elements of grunge into their over-the-top love of all things metal.\" He praised Bach's performance and the band's \"street-savvy\" attitude and \"prog ethic\" shown in the record. \n\nConversely, Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly considered Subhuman Race made of \"the same squealing, yowling, third-rate metal that made Skid Row pariahs in the first place\", calling them an \"unrepentant hair band of the '80s\" which had mangled their melodies \"to get over their old 'power ballad' stigma.\" Dean Golemis of the Chicago Tribune criticised Skid Row's \"campy, formulaic arrangements that still cater to commercial appeal and offer nothing new to a genre plagued by cliches and copycats\", but remarked as \"Bach's vocal bravura stands as the album's saving grace.\" Thomas Kupfer in his review for the German Rock Hard magazine wrote that \"Skid Row will offend a lot of old fans with this disc\", where \"mediocrity dominates, the songs seem uninspired, and only the compact sound and the solid craftsmanship of the band members\" save the album.\n\nThe band members also do not reflect positively on their work on Subhuman Race. In an interview in November 2006, bassist Rachel Bolan expressed his negative feelings about the album: \"That record was a nightmare. Internally the band had fallen apart but we were forced to go in and do another record and it was a nightmare with the recording, writing and producing. We worked with someone we had not worked with before after being so successful with Michael and we were used to the way he did things. I am not slighting Bob at all, he is a genius producer but it was bad timing. I did not have the greatest time, it was nobody's fault, it was just the way things were. Also the record absolutely sucks.\" In a June 2018 interview on the \"Rock Talk with Mitch Lafon\" podcast, vocalist Sebastian Bach indicated that, despite featuring \"some good tunes\", the \"very dated production sound\" of Subhuman Race has made it an unlistenable album: \"In the same way, probably, Lars Ulrich might think St. Anger is dated to that time, I think Subhuman Race might be our St. Anger.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\n† The song \"Iron Will\" ends at 4:45 followed by 2:15 of silence before a hidden track plays.\n\nPersonnel\n\nSkid Row\nSebastian Bach – vocals\nScotti Hill – guitar, backing vocals\nDave Sabo – guitar, backing vocals\nRachel Bolan – bass guitar, backing vocals\nRob Affuso – drums, percussion\n\nProduction\nBob Rock – producer\nRandy Staub – engineer, mixing at The Warehouse Studio, Vancouver, Canada\nBrian Dobbs, Darrin Grahn – assistant engineers\nGeorge Marino – mastering at Sterling Sound, New York City\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1995 albums\nSkid Row (American band) albums\nAtlantic Records albums\nAlbums produced by Bob Rock\nAlbums recorded at Greenhouse Studios", "\"Subhuman\" is a 1995 song written, recorded and produced by alternative rock band Garbage, and was originally released as an international b-side on \"Vow\", Garbage's debut single. That song had earlier been pressed as a limited edition 7\" vinyl in the United Kingdom for the purposes of launching the band; when it came to re-releasing \"Vow\", Mushroom Records felt that \"Subhuman\" was strong enough to be issued as an A-side to follow up \"Vow\". A last-minute decision was made to switch the songs. \"Vow\" was relegated to bonus track on the CD single.\n\n\"Subhuman\" was released as the band's second single exclusively in the United Kingdom, and it gave Garbage their first chart appearance, peaking at #50 on the UK Singles Chart. The single was promoted by a press junket organised by the record label on a boat sailing down London's River Thames, and attracted media attention for the distinctive rubber packaging of the vinyl format.\n\n\"Subhuman\" was also used by the label as an opportunity to massively raise general awareness of Garbage and as an advertising campaign to brand the \"G\" logo by promoting the single release with plain white flyers, stickers, carrier bags, t-shirts and subway posters emblazoned with the band's \"G\" logo. \"Subhuman\" was never intended to be an album cut, and was not included on the standard editions of the band's debut album, Garbage which was released later that year. The single was excluded from the 2007 greatest hits album Absolute Garbage.\n\nSong background\n\n\"Subhuman\" was written and recorded over the course of 1994 during sessions between band members Duke Erikson, Shirley Manson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig in either Marker's basement recording studio or at their own Smart Studios in Wisconsin university town Madison. The band has kept the story behind the song ambiguous, although Erikson has said that the lyric \"burn down all your idols\", the first line of the song \"pretty much sums it up\". The opening noise emerged from Vig accidentally wiring the mixing console to the air conditioner.\n\nFirst single\n\nMidway through the recording sessions for the band's debut album, the band's manager, Shannon O'Shea, secured the group an inclusion on Volume, a compilation album and magazine title. However, the deadline given for accepting a track was only three days. The only song the band had completed in any shape or form was \"Vow\". After Volume was released in December 1994, \"Vow\" began to receive radio airplay from Radio 1 DJs Steve Lamacq, John Peel and Johnnie Walker, and record stores in the United Kingdom began to receive requests for a single that didn't yet exist. Garbage were still putting the finishing touches to their debut set, as well as extra tracks such as \"Subhuman\", which was still three months away from release. In the United Kingdom, the terms of the licensing deal regarding the inclusion of \"Vow\" on Volume meant that the track could only be released on a limited basis. \"Vow\" was issued in a 1,000 copy limited edition 7\" vinyl format packaged in an aluminium sleeve, which was designed by O'Shea along with the aluminium sleeve for \"Vow\". The single sold out in one day. Mushroom later licensed the single out to BMG who fully issued \"Vow\" in Europe, and to White Records, who released \"Vow\" in Australia and New Zealand in a limited edition format packaged in an embossed rubber wallet. \"Subhuman\" was released as the \"Vow\" b-side on both labels.\n\n\"Subhuman\" release\n\nMushroom's plan for releasing \"Vow\" in the limited metal sleeve had been to create an early buzz about the band and \"Vow\" by word-of-mouth, rather than by retail impact. For the follow-up, the label were concerned with maintaining the interest of the record buyers, as well as attracting interest from record chains. Mushroom manufactured advance discs to promote a re-release of \"Vow\" in the United Kingdom, but later decided to alter the single, so that the international b-side, \"Subhuman\", would be the title track. The label felt that \"Subhuman\" was a \"strong single.. to release in its own right\". \"Subhuman\" was to be a limited release as well, but manufactured in greater quantities to enable a greater retail impact than the first. Mushroom re-serviced the single to the media as a cassette featuring \"Subhuman\", \"#1 Crush\" (an album out-take) and \"Vow\".\n\nGarbage requested that their initial singles were to be packaged with a \"high-tech, design-led approach\", which led to the manufacture of the aluminium sleeve for \"Vow\". To follow it up, Mushroom's product manager originally wanted to create the sleeve for \"Subhuman\" from neoprene. Instead, he sourced a black plasticised rubber from a company in Germany to create the sleeve. Although it wasn't requested, the company manufactured the rubber wallets with lining and a flap to enclose the discs within. \"Subhuman\" was a bigger investment than the first single; the metal sleeve for \"Vow\" had cost 90p per unit to manufacture, \"Subhuman\" cost £2.00 per unit. Knowing that the dealer price was fixed at £1.36, Mushroom lost 64p on each. The company manufactured 3,000 copies of the sleeve in 7\" size, and a further 2,000 copies in CD-size (these were used as promos, and exported to Australia for their limited edition \"Vow\" CD single).\n\nMarketing trends over the 1990s had shown an increasing dominance of using branding to sell product, so Mushroom's marketing campaign for the launch of the band focused on branding the \"G\" logo onto the minds of music buyers. The logo would adorn the album cover and each upcoming single, as well as all upcoming promotional matter and point of sale displays. Upfront of the release date, Mushroom ran two teaser campaigns in the British music press. 10,000 A2 posters of simply the G logo were affixed to prime sites around the United Kingdom; another 10,000 were set up two weeks later which also included the band's name, the name of the single and the release information. Similar branded carrier bags and posters were distributed to independent retailers, flyers and stickers distributed to nightclubs, as well as branded t-shirts to key people. No music video was filmed for \"Subhuman\", instead, Mushroom serviced the video for \"Vow\" to music channels.\n\nTo support the release of \"Subhuman\" and launch the album, Mushroom organised the band's first fanzine press conference on July 25, on board a cruise sailing up and down the River Thames. The event hostted an exclusive album playback and a question and answer session to introduce the band, and gained music paper publicity for the release of the album. The boat set-off from Embankment Pier early, without the band on board, and had to return to pick them up (it was later pointed out and reported that the conference had taken place on the sister-ship to the Marchioness, which had sank with loss of life a few years earlier).\n\nOn August 7, 1995 \"Subhuman\" was issued on the rubber-sleeved 7\" vinyl, and stickered CD single, both limited to 3,000 copies each. Some copies of the vinyl also came with a G-logo carrier bag. Both formats sold out in the first week. \"Subhuman\" debuted at #50 on the UK Singles Chart. In case of demand, Mushroom also manufactured an extra 2,000 copies of the 7\" in a simple black card sleeve. These made it into shops the following week, at the end of which \"Subhuman\" fell to #77.\n\nCommercial track listings\n\nUK CD single Mushroom D1138\n \"Subhuman\" – 4:36\n \"#1 Crush\" – 4:52\n \"Vow\" – 4:30\n\nUK 7\" vinyl Mushroom S1138 / SX1138\n \"Subhuman\" – 4:36\n \"#1 Crush\" – 4:52\n\nDigital download\n \"Subhuman (Supersize mix)\" – 5:13\n\nPost-release\n\nBoth \"Subhuman\" and \"#1 Crush\" were never intended to be included on the band's debut album, which was released in the United Kingdom in October 1995. Both tracks were however included as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition of Garbage. In November, \"Subhuman\" was included on Rare Track Collection, a five track sampler given away free by Virgin Megastores in France with purchases of the album. Towards the end of the following year, \"Subhuman\" b-side \"#1 Crush\" was remixed by Nellee Hooper for inclusion on the soundtrack album to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. As the album opener, \"#1 Crush\" received massive airplay at alternative radio. At the start of 1997, \"#1 Crush\" hit #1 on the Modern Rock chart and stayed there for four weeks. Later the same year, limited two-disc edition of Garbage featuring \"Subhuman\" and three other b-sides was issued in Korea and Singapore. In 1998, \"Subhuman\" was included on Independent Access, a CD sampler given away by Newbury Comics stores in the United States with purchases of Garbage's second album Version 2.0.\n\nIn 2015, Garbage announced the 20th Anniversary Edition of their debut album with a free download of an extended version of \"Subhuman\" with all pre-orders. \"Subhuman\" was included on the deluxe edition of the reissue. \"I just don’t feel that everyone felt [\"Subhuman\"] was strong enough to put on the record\", Shirley Manson stated in 2015. \"In retrospect it’s a bit silly, because it’s fantastic. You make strange choices and you have to live by them\".\n\nCritical reception\n\n\"Subhuman\" received a mostly positive response from music critics. Before the release of the single, Volume described the song as having a \"dark sensibility and bouts of Trent Reznor-esque depression\". Both Kerrang! and Melody Maker rated \"Subhuman\" as their \"Single of the Week\"; the former publication wrote, \"\"Subhuman\" crunches along on a thrilling, all consuming electro-rhythm-from-hell. Totally distinctive and utterly brilliant\" while the latter lengthily enthused, \"There are reminders of Curve, in the scowling, abrasive guitars, trussed down with a rubbery, mordantly funky rhythm programme. This is severely internal music, right inside your head, pulsing like a migraine, with Manson crowing like a dominatrix as she presides over some impending psychological breakdown\". Hot Press described \"Subhuman\" as \"hypnotic drum loops combined with a guitar overload... an industrial noise-feat\", adding that it was \"a great single\". Vox were equally positive, writing \"trashing a bloated, ego-fuelled but nameless icon, \"Subhuman\" is one of [Garbage's] darkest songs to date.\" NME were severely critical of \"Subhuman\", stating that the single was a disappointing follow up to \"Vow\": \"Garbage go and ruin it all by being hopelessly techno-gothic. The end result is a song plagued by its own earnestness... it more or less self-destructs.\"\n\nCharts\n\nCredits and Personnel\n\nGarbage\nShirley Manson – vocals, guitar\nSteve Marker – guitars, bass, samples and loops\nDuke Erikson – guitars, keyboards, six-string and fuzz bass\nButch Vig – drums, loops, noise and efx\n\nRecorded & produced by Garbage\nRecorded at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, USA\nSecond engineer: Mike Zirkel\nMastered: Howie Weinberg (Masterdisk)\nEditing & post production: Scott Hull (Masterdisk)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"Subhuman (Supersize mix)\" video\n\"Subhuman\" lyrics\n\"Subhuman\" release discography\n\n1995 singles\nGarbage (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Butch Vig\nSongs written by Shirley Manson\nSongs written by Duke Erikson\nSongs written by Steve Marker\nSongs written by Butch Vig" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)", "Was Subhuman race an album?", "In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race" ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	What was Spli with Bach?	2	What was Spli with Bach for Skid Row?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	true	[ "Bach composed , as chorale cantata for the Marian feast of the Annunciation, for a first performance in a church service in Leipzig on 25 March 1725. The cantata, for soprano, tenor and bass soloists, four-part choir and Baroque orchestra, takes around 25 minutes to perform.\n\nRecordings\nThe conductor Fritz Lehmann recorded nine Bach cantatas with the Berliner Motettenchor and the Berliner Philharmoniker with Deutsche Grammophon. Recordings of nine cantatas were made between 1950 and 1952, and was the first one to be released, in 1952. Lehmann died in 1956, preventing an expansion of the project. The nine cantatas were reissued by Eloquence Classics in 2018. Fritz Werner recorded around 50 of Bach's church cantatas with the Heinrich-Schütz-Chor Heilbronn and the Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra between 1959 and 1974, recording in 1965. Several of them were reissued in 2004. A reviewer of the first volume noted: \"Fritz Werner has this music in his blood. His instincts for Bach style are generally sound and he directs the music with a profound belief in it. These are performances of quiet conviction.\"\n\nIn 1971, was the first cantata for the project to record all church cantatas by Bach on period instruments in historically informed performances for what is now known as the Teldec series (it began on the Telefunken label); the conductor was Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who was one of two conductors on the project, the other being Gustav Leonhardt. While some instruments such as baroque violins were relatively easily available, other instruments necessary for historically informed performance posed more challenges, for example, the oboe da caccia which is specified in the score of this cantata. A reconstructed version of this instrument was available by 1973, when the revival of the instrument had benefited from scholarly research at the beginning of the 1970s. However, it is not clear what would have been available for Jürg Schäftlein and Karl Gruber, the oboists of Harnoncourt's instrumental ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien, when BWV 1 was recorded. Another aspect of historically informed performance is the use of all male singers (which was the norm for Bach in Leipzig). Harnoncourt conducted the first four cantatas with the Wiener Sängerknaben, with a soprano soloist from the boys' choir and a countertenor for the alto part.\n\nHelmuth Rilling, who began a recording of all Bach cantatas in 1969 and completed it in 1985, recorded in 1980, with the Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart. Thomaskantor Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, recorded Bach cantatas with the Thomanerchor and the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum. They recorded , coupled with Bach's chorale cantata on a hymn by Nicolai, , in 1987. Pieter Jan Leusink conducted all Bach church cantatas with the Holland Boys Choir and the Netherlands Bach Collegium in historically informed performance, however with women for the solo soprano parts. He completed the project within a year on the occasion of the Bach Year 2000. A reviewer from Gramophone noted: \"Leusink's success elsewhere comes largely through his admirably well-judged feeling for tempos and a means of accentuation which drives the music forward inexorably\".\n\nMasaaki Suzuki, who studied historically informed practice in Europe began recording Bach's church cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan in 1999, at first not aiming at a complete cycle, but completing all in 2017. They released in 2007. Sigiswald Kuijken recorded a series of cantatas with the ensemble La Petite Bande with vocalists singing one voice per part (OVPP). They recorded in 2007. The Swiss J. S. Bach-Stiftung plans to cover all church cantata by Bach in recorded live concerts with introductions. They covered in 2010. In 2013, a CD was released sung by the Thomanerchor with the Gewandhausorchester, conducted by Georg Christoph Biller. As part 9 of their series Das Kirchenjahr mit Johann Sebastian Bach (The church year with J. S. Bach), titled Marian Feasts, they performed Cantata 125 for Purification, Cantata 1 for Annunciation, and Cantata 147 for Visitation.\n\n{\| class=\"wikitable sortable plainrowheaders\" style=\"margin-right: 0;\"\n\|-\n\|+ Recordings of Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern\n\|-\n! scope=\"col\" \| Title\n! scope=\"col\" \| Conductor / Choir / Orchestra\n! scope=\"col\" \| Soloists\n! scope=\"col\" \| Label\n! scope=\"col\" \| Year\n\|-\n\nReferences\n\nCited sources\n\nExternal links \n (recordings)\n \n Brian Robins: Johann Sebastian Bach / Cantata No. 1, \"Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern,\" BWV 1 (BC A173) (Description and recordings) AllMusic\n\nDiscographies of compositions by J. S. Bach", "Ole Christian Bach (31 May 1957 – 11 July 2005) was a Norwegian con artist.\n\nBach came into the spotlight in 1987 after organizing an illegal pyramid scheme where many investors and banks lost a total of 40 million NOK. Bach fled and was arrested in London and extradited to Norway. In 1988, he was convicted on charges of fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. \n\nHe was convicted again for his involvement with the theft and sale of Edvard Munch's Madonna in 1992, and sentenced to seven months in prison.\nBach managed to establish new connections, most importantly with Gerard Cok. Cok controlled the German porn enterprise Beate Uhse, and he trusted Bach with the establishment of porn shops in Norway and Sweden. With security in an estate out of Oslo, Cok also gave Bach a NOK 60.000.000 loan. The security later turned out to be only in the estate's boat house.\n\nIn 2005 he was again charged with economic fraud. On 11 July 2005, he committed suicide in Sweden after a car chase with Swedish undercover police.\n\nAftermath\nAfter Bach's death, Gerhard Cok sued Ole Christian Bach's lawyer Ronny Mulstad for his role in securing Cok's loan to Bach. The dispute was settled outside court.\n\nThe role of the journalists who covered the Bach's hiding came under investigation after Bach's death. One journalist was fined for having helped Bach to avoid arrest by paying him for interviews. A magazine was fined for similar reasons.\n\nA friend of Bach's was sentenced to prison for helping Bach to avoid arrest.\n\nReferences\n\n1957 births\n2005 deaths\n20th-century Norwegian businesspeople\nSuicides by firearm in Sweden\nNorwegian prisoners and detainees\nNorwegian fraudsters\nPrisoners and detainees of Norway" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)", "Was Subhuman race an album?", "In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race", "What was Spli with Bach?", "Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan" ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	What was this argument over?	3	What was the Bach's argument with Bolan in 1996 over?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it.	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	false	[ "See Diodorus Cronus § Master argument for the classical master argument related to the problem of future contingents.\n\nThe master argument is George Berkeley's argument that mind-independent objects do not exist because it is impossible to conceive of them. The argument is against intuition and has been widely challenged. The term \"Berkeley's master argument\" was introduced by Andre Gallois in 1974. His term has firmly become currency of contemporary Berkeley scholarship.\n\nOverview\nIn order to determine whether it is possible for a tree to exist outside of the mind, we need to be able to think of an unconceived tree. But as soon as we try to think about this tree, we have conceived it. So we have failed and there is no good reason to believe that trees exist outside of the mind. \n\nThe master argument has been seen by several prominent philosophers as having a crucial mistake; see criticisms of idealism. However, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact mistake Berkeley makes. Bertrand Russell among others believed the problem is Berkeley's argument \"seems to depend for its plausibility upon confusing the thing apprehended with the act of apprehension\":\n\n\"If we say that the things known must be in the mind, we are either un-duly limiting the mind's power of knowing, or we are uttering a mere tautology. We are uttering a mere tautology if we mean by 'in the mind' the same as by 'before the mind', i.e. if we mean merely being apprehended by the mind. But if we mean this, we shall have to admit that what, in this sense, is in the mind, may nevertheless be not mental. Thus when we realize the nature of knowledge, Berkeley's argument is seen to be wrong in substance as well as in form, and his grounds for supposing that 'idea'-i.e. the objects apprehended-must be mental, are found to have no validity whatever. Hence his grounds in favour of the idealism may be dismissed.\"\n\nCriticisms \nSome claim that Berkeley was not making a master argument at all and that what he was actually trying to show was that the substance 'matter' was actually an abstract concept that passed itself off in peoples' minds as an object of immediate experience. Rather than say that the matter cannot exist, the critics claim, Berkeley is saying that it can only exist as an abstract concept and that this abstract concept was conceptually useless.\n\nReferences \n\nPhilosophical arguments\nGeorge Berkeley", "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" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)", "Was Subhuman race an album?", "In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race", "What was Spli with Bach?", "Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan", "What was this argument over?", "Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it." ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	What was their first album?	4	What was Skid Row's first album?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	false	[ "What If... is the seventh full-length studio album by the American rock band Mr. Big, which was released on January 21, 2011 through Frontiers Records. It was the band's first album since their 2009 reunion, their first album in 10 years since 2001's Actual Size and their first album with the original line-up featuring guitarist Paul Gilbert since 1996's Hey Man.\n\nThe album was recorded between September–October 2010 in a Los Angeles-area studio with producer Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Rush, Black Country Communion).\n\nThe first single from the album, \"Undertow\", was released on November 27, 2010. A music video was filmed for the single and featured on the special edition DVD of the album The album was supported by a world tour in 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nMr. Big\n Eric Martin – lead vocals\n Paul Gilbert – guitar, backing vocals\n Billy Sheehan – bass guitar, backing vocals\n Pat Torpey – drums, percussion and backing vocals\n\nProduction\nKevin Shirley – producer, mixing\nVanessa Parr – engineer at Village Recorders\nJared Kvitka – engineer at The Cave\nSteve Hall – mastering at Future Disc, Los Angeles\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n 'What If...' Album Review\n WHD Entertainment Website\n\nMr. Big (American band) albums\n2011 albums\nFrontiers Records albums\nAlbums produced by Kevin Shirley", "What the Future Holds Pt. 2 is the seventh studio album by the British group Steps. The album was released on 10 September 2021 by BMG Rights Management.\n\nBackground\nIn April 2021, Steps announced what was intended to be a deluxe edition of What the Future Holds would now be released as their seventh studio album, What the Future Holds Pt.2. Claire Richards said of the new record, \"we see What the Future Holds Pt. 2 as the perfect companion piece to the original album. The new record is classic Steps but also explores some brand-new sounds.\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single was confirmed as \"Heartbreak in This City\" remix featuring singer and television personality Michelle Visage. It debuted on BBC Radio 2 on 25 February, and made available to stream/download that same day. The single debuted at number 25 on the Official Singles Sales Chart.\n\n\"Take Me for a Ride\" was released on 29 July 2021 as the album's second single. \n\nA cover of \"The Slightest Touch\" was released on 20 August 2021 as the album's third single.\n\nIn November 2021 and during opening night of the arena tour, Lee Latchford-Evans confirmed \"A Hundred Years of Winter\" was the next single. It was released on 19 November 2021.\n\nCommercial performance\nWhat the Future Holds Pt. 2 debuted at number 2 in the UK Albums Charts with 25,000 units sold, only 2,000 copies behind Manic Street Preachers' The Ultra Vivid Lament. This was the second time the two groups competed for number-one position, after their albums This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and Step One also charted at number 1 and 2, respectively, way back in 1998. This marks Steps' third consecutive number 2 studio album since their reunion in 2012, next to Tears on the Dancefloor and What the Future Holds Pt. 1. \n\nIn Australia, the album debuted at number 11, Steps' highest peak in the country in 23 years, since their debut album Step One peaked at number 5 in 1998.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n2021 albums\nSteps (group) albums\nPop albums by British artists" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)", "Was Subhuman race an album?", "In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race", "What was Spli with Bach?", "Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan", "What was this argument over?", "Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it.", "What was their first album?", "I don't know." ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	Did Bach still appear on Kiss's tour?	5	Did Bach still appear on Kiss's tour?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour.	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	true	[ "\"Parasite\" is a song by American hard rock band Kiss, released in 1974 on their second studio album, Hotter Than Hell. The song is one of three songs featured on the album written by lead guitarist Ace Frehley. As one of the album's heaviest songs, \"Parasite\" was performed on the following tour, but Kiss dropped it from the setlist for the Destroyer Tour and did not play it again until the Revenge Tour in 1992. \"Parasite\" was performed most recently during the End of the Road World Tour. As Frehley was insecure about his singing ability, he passed that duty to Gene Simmons. In 2016, Frehley re-recorded the track with John 5 for Frehley's solo album Origins Vol. 1.\n\nDetails \nDiscussing the style of \"Parasite\", and other cuts from Hotter than Hell, Eduardo Rivadavia of Loudwire opined that the song displayed \"blue-collar, dare we say proto-punk, greatness\".\n\nAppearances\n\"Parasite\" appears on the following Kiss albums:\nHotter Than Hell - studio version\nGold - studio version\nKiss Chronicles: 3 Classic Albums - studio version\nKiss Alive! 1975–2000 - Alive! version\nIkons - studio version\nKiss Alive 35 - live version\n\nCover versions\nAnthrax's version first appeared as the B-side of their 1988 single \"Antisocial\". It was re-released on the 1991 compilation Attack of the Killer B's and 1994 live album Live: The Island Years.\nSebastian Bach's live video Forever Wild contained a cover of the song.\nAce Frehley recorded an updated version for his 2016 covers album, Origins, Vol. 1.\n\nPersonnel\nGene Simmons – lead vocals\nAce Frehley – lead guitar, bass, backing vocals\nPaul Stanley – rhythm guitar, backing vocals\nPeter Criss – drums\n\nReferences\n\n1974 songs\nKiss (band) songs\nAnthrax (American band) songs\nSongs written by Ace Frehley", "The Alive/Worldwide Tour (also known as the Reunion Tour) was a reunion concert tour by American heavy metal band Kiss which began on June 28, 1996 in Detroit, United States and concluded on July 5, 1997 in London, England. It was the first tour with original members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley since the Dynasty Tour in 1979.\n\nBackground\n\nWhile Kiss continued to exist publicly as Simmons, Stanley, Kulick and Singer, arrangements for a reunion of the original lineup were in the works. These efforts culminated with a public event as dramatic as any the band had staged since its 1983 unmasking on MTV. With the following statements, Tupac Shakur introduced the original Kiss lineup, in full makeup and Love Gun-era stage outfits, to a rousing ovation at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards on February 28, 1996:\n\nOn April 16, 1996, the band members held a press conference aboard the in New York City, where they announced their plans for a full-fledged reunion tour, with the help of new manager Doc McGhee. The conference, MC'd by Conan O'Brien, was simulcast to 58 countries. On April 20, nearly 40,000 tickets for the tour's first show sold out in 47 minutes. The band would bring back their vintage stunts, including Simmons' blood-spitting and fire-breathing, Frehley's smoking and shooting guitar, pyrotechnics and platform risers.\n\nThe members worked out to physical shape for the tour, with Frehley going for plastic surgery, as Stanley stated that they 'did not want people to be disappointed when they saw a bunch of fat guys in tights'.\n\nFollowing rehearsals, Kiss began their reunion tour on June 15, 1996 with a warmup gig in Irvine, California for the KROQ Weenie Roast. It was considered by the band to be a live rehearsal for many aspects of the stage show before the tour was set to begin at a sold out Tiger Stadium in Detroit on June 28, 1996, playing to approximately 40,000 people. The tour lasted for 192 shows over the course of one year and earned $43.6 million, making Kiss the top-drawing concert act of 1996.\n\nIn the tour program for the band's final tour, Stanley reflected on the tour:\n\nReception\nFor the warmup performance at the KROQ \"Weenie Roast\", a reporter from the Los Angeles Times noted on the weak, stringy voice of Stanley, claiming that he was ill equipped for his operatic style that 'it's almost heroic for him to even try'. He noted that Kiss still looked and sounded like Kiss, noting on the teamwork that the band were sharing during the performance, concluding that both Criss and Frehley were now 'reconciled for fun and lots of profit'.\n\nA reporter from Rolling Stone who attended the first show of the tour at Tiger Stadium in Detroit, stated: \"Sure, Kiss suck, but give them a little credit - they've sucked for more than 20 years. Surviving has meant the band has lived long enough to see its influence on the next generation, which perhaps explains the shocking spectacle of Billy Corgan and Sebastian Bach bonding backstage. So, OK, maybe Kiss don't suck. And in their defense, it should be shouted out loud that they were one of the first bands to embrace fully the notion of rock as a show, thus putting them ahead of the curve that would soon bring us Cats and the re-emergence of Las Vegas as the new American capital.\"\n\nFrom the final show in London at Finsbury Park, a reporter from The Independent stated: \"As you'd expect with Kiss, it was one of the best stage entrances ever but, apart from a few moments, the gig soon sagged. They retained some interest through theatrics... the fact that all this was going on in daylight didn't help but when dusk fell, Kiss moved up several gears. Since it was the last night of a world tour that started over a year ago, sentimentality was a recurring theme. Singer and band spokesman Paul Stanley babbled on how important the Kiss Army were and how he'd like to get among them... If this was theatre, it was the theatre of the absurd, where the joke seemed to be on Kiss, until, finally, you realized that you'd had been laughing with them, not at them, all along.\"\n\nSetlist\nThe following setlist was performed at the warmup show of the tour in Irvine, California and is not intended to represent all of the shows on tour.\n\"Deuce\"\n\"Love Gun\"\n\"Cold Gin\"\n\"Calling Dr. Love\"\n\"Firehouse\"\n\"Shock Me\"\n\"100,000 Years\"\n\"Detroit Rock City\"\n\"Black Diamond\"\nEncore\n\"Rock and Roll All Nite\"\n\nTour dates\n\nPostponed and cancelled dates\n\nBox office score data\n\nPersonnel\nPaul Stanley – vocals, rhythm guitar\nGene Simmons – vocals, bass\nPeter Criss – drums, vocals\nAce Frehley – lead guitar, vocals\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nKiss (band) concert tours\n1996 concert tours\n1997 concert tours\nReunion concert tours" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)", "Was Subhuman race an album?", "In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race", "What was Spli with Bach?", "Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan", "What was this argument over?", "Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it.", "What was their first album?", "I don't know.", "Did Bach still appear on Kiss's tour?", "Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour." ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	Was Bach back with them?	6	Was Bach back with Skid Row?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women.	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	true	[ "The Bach \"Super Transport\" was a design for a four-engined transport aircraft that was never built.\n\nDesign and development\nThe Bach Aircraft Company was founded by L. Morton Bach in the early 1940s. Following in the footsteps of Fokker with the Fokker F.VII Trimotor, and the metal Ford Trimotor, the Bach Air Yacht was developed as a commercial trimotor transport. In 1928, Bach filed a patent for a four-engined design. The aircraft was similar to the trimotor as a metal-covered, strut-braced biplane, with conventional landing gear. It also featured semi-circular windows like the Stout 2-AT Pullman. The aircraft design featured an unusual modification of the trimotor arrangement with two nose-mounted engines stacked above each other with cockpit windows between them. The fuselage carried a double-decker seating arrangement. The Bach company was reorganized and dissolved during the Great Depression without any examples built.\n\nSpecifications (Super Transport estimated)\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\n \n1920s United States airliners", "Ole Christian Bach (31 May 1957 – 11 July 2005) was a Norwegian con artist.\n\nBach came into the spotlight in 1987 after organizing an illegal pyramid scheme where many investors and banks lost a total of 40 million NOK. Bach fled and was arrested in London and extradited to Norway. In 1988, he was convicted on charges of fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. \n\nHe was convicted again for his involvement with the theft and sale of Edvard Munch's Madonna in 1992, and sentenced to seven months in prison.\nBach managed to establish new connections, most importantly with Gerard Cok. Cok controlled the German porn enterprise Beate Uhse, and he trusted Bach with the establishment of porn shops in Norway and Sweden. With security in an estate out of Oslo, Cok also gave Bach a NOK 60.000.000 loan. The security later turned out to be only in the estate's boat house.\n\nIn 2005 he was again charged with economic fraud. On 11 July 2005, he committed suicide in Sweden after a car chase with Swedish undercover police.\n\nAftermath\nAfter Bach's death, Gerhard Cok sued Ole Christian Bach's lawyer Ronny Mulstad for his role in securing Cok's loan to Bach. The dispute was settled outside court.\n\nThe role of the journalists who covered the Bach's hiding came under investigation after Bach's death. One journalist was fined for having helped Bach to avoid arrest by paying him for interviews. A magazine was fined for similar reasons.\n\nA friend of Bach's was sentenced to prison for helping Bach to avoid arrest.\n\nReferences\n\n1957 births\n2005 deaths\n20th-century Norwegian businesspeople\nSuicides by firearm in Sweden\nNorwegian prisoners and detainees\nNorwegian fraudsters\nPrisoners and detainees of Norway" ]
[ "Skid Row (American band)", "Subhuman Race and split with Bach (1992-1998)", "Was Subhuman race an album?", "In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race", "What was Spli with Bach?", "Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan", "What was this argument over?", "Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it.", "What was their first album?", "I don't know.", "Did Bach still appear on Kiss's tour?", "Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour.", "Was Bach back with them?", "After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women." ]	C_d886a552fc91488d8f3e5fac1725c595_0	Did they work with any other bands during this time?	7	Did Skid Row work with any other bands after Bach's departure other than Mars Needs Women?	Skid Row (American band)	After the Slave to the Grind promotional tour, an EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Before a third album could be recorded, Skid Row took an extended hiatus in 1993 on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. For some time, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and charted in the top 40 on the American charts. Although it did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it charted one single in the US and received positive reviews. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on its North American leg of the tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach already booked it. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big for an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate's answering machine telling them the band was never too big to open for Kiss. Bolan had a side project, a punk band Prunella Scales who was playing at the same time as the planned Kiss show. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to him leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Motley Crue under the new moniker. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Skid Row is an American rock band, formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill, drummer Rob Hammersmith and vocalist ZP Theart. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. During this period, the band consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach and Affuso both left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus. After replacing Bach with Johnny Solinger and Affuso with Phil Varone in 1999, Skid Row released Thickskin (2003) and Revolutions per Minute (2006), both of which garnered mixed reception. In April 2015, Skid Row announced that they had parted ways with Solinger, and replaced him with former TNT singer Tony Harnell. Eight months later, however, Harnell left the band. In January 2017, former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was named the official lead singer after spending a year as a touring member of the group. History Early years (1986–1988) Skid Row was formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey, by bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo. The pair recruited guitarist Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Affuso through newspaper ads. Lead vocalist Sebastian Bach replaced original singer Matt Fallon after the band spotted Bach singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss's wedding at the age of 18, and the members asked him to join in early 1987. Bolan claimed in a 2020 interview on the Chuck Shute Podcast that, before settling with Bach on vocals, then-future Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi auditioned for Skid Row. The band began playing shows in clubs throughout the eastern United States. Sabo and John Bon Jovi were teenage friends and Sabo was briefly a member of Bon Jovi before being replaced by guitarist Richie Sambora. Sabo and Bon Jovi agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. Bon Jovi's manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and secured the band a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988. Skid Row recorded its debut at the Royal Recorders in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener. Before releasing the album, the management paid a reported $35,000 to guitarist Gary Moore for the rights to the name of his namesake band. Skid Row and Slave to the Grind (1989–1992) The band's debut album Skid Row, released in January 1989, was an instant success. The record went 5× platinum on the strength of the Top 10 singles "18 and Life" and "I Remember You". Skid Row supported the album by opening for Bon Jovi on their New Jersey tour. As part of the six-month tour, Skid Row played its first-ever UK gig supporting Bon Jovi's outdoor show at Milton Keynes Bowl on August 19, 1989. The next day, Skid Row played a successful club show at London's Marquee Club in Charing Cross Road. Skid Row also took part in the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which was set up to keep McGhee out of jail. McGhee was facing drug trafficking charges, and therefore set up an anti-drug/peace concert in Russia, featuring a few of the artists that he and his brother managed. Skid Row returned to the UK three months later, opening for Mötley Crüe on their European Dr. Feelgood tour in early November 1989 with Mr. Big. That was followed by a UK headlining tour culminating in a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon, with Vain supporting. Skid Row continued touring into 1990, including supporting Aerosmith on the North American leg of their Pump tour. In what is referred to as "The Bottle Incident" by fans of the band, Bach was hit onstage with a bottle thrown from the crowd at a concert in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Skid Row was opening for Aerosmith on December 27, 1989. Bach threw the bottle back, hitting a girl (not the thrower), so he jumped on the crowd to beat the person who can be seen on a tour video released by Skid Row called Oh Say Can You Scream in 1990. Shortly thereafter, at another show, Bach put on a T-shirt proclaiming the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" as a spoof of the slogan for the insecticide Raid, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead". The shirt was previously given to him by a fan, as Bach was seen wearing the year prior. On MTV News Bach dismissed the controversy saying "I don't see what the big deal is really but I guess if someone wore a T-shirt saying "Cancer Kills Grandma's Dead" I'd probably be a little bit pissed too." Bach eventually expressed regret over the incident, claiming that he did not read the slogan before putting the shirt on, even though he wore it for a photo shoot in Metal Edge magazine. The band also recorded a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" for the Make A Difference Foundation release Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell. Skid Row returned to the studio with Wagener in 1990 to record its second studio album Slave to the Grind. The album was released in June 1991 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, reaching 2× platinum status without any radio hits. It was a departure for the band; while Skid Row was an album that followed the typical 1980s band formula, Slave to the Grind had a heavier sound. Skid Row once again went out on a worldwide tour which lasted over a year, including a leg supporting Guns N' Roses in 1991 and an appearance at Monsters of Rock in Castle Donington in 1992. The band then took out Pantera, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns and Love/Hate as supporting acts as part of the tour supporting Slave to the Grind. Skid Row had originally asked upcoming grunge band Nirvana to open for them but they declined, saying that Skid Row was "too homophobic", relating to the Sebastian Bach T-shirt incident. Coincidentally, an earlier incarnation of Nirvana was briefly also named Skid Row. An EP of covers B-Side Ourselves was released in September 1992. Not only does the EP include cover versions of songs originally recorded by artists that had influenced Skid Row, but it is essentially a compilation of tracks that had previously appeared as B-sides of the Slave to the Grind-era singles, while its closing track – the cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" – had never appeared elsewhere. B-Side Ourselves peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200 (Skid Row's lowest chart position to date), and it was certified gold by the RIAA approximately six months after its release. Subhuman Race (1993–1998) After the Slave to the Grind tour ended in February 1993 in Australia, where they again opened for Guns N' Roses, Skid Row took an extended hiatus on McGhee's recommendation to wait for the grunge movement to fade away. Also during this period, Skid Row parted ways with Wagener, possibly due to the music taking a different direction for the follow-up to Slave to the Grind. In 1994, the band returned to the studio with producer Bob Rock to record its third album Subhuman Race. The members of Skid Row have claimed that its recording sessions were filled with rising tensions between both the band members and Rock, including debates over the album's musical direction, and have also indicated that this was the beginning of the band's strained relationship with Bach. Subhuman Race was released in March 1995, and peaked in the top 40 on the US charts, supported by the singles "My Enemy", "Breakin' Down" and "Into Another", the latter being the band's last to chart there. Although the album did not achieve the success of its predecessors, it received mixed to positive reviews and has also been viewed as Skid Row's darkest album. As of 2019, the band rarely plays any songs from Subhuman Race live; most of them were last performed on the album's tour in 1995, while "Beat Yourself Blind" is the only song they have played live with its subsequent singers Johnny Solinger and ZP Theart. At that point, the band shifted to performing at smaller venues and its videos were rarely played on MTV, partly because of the rise in popularity of grunge and subsequent decline of many 1980s heavy metal styles. Skid Row was the opening act for Van Halen on the North American leg of their Balance tour. Eventually, Bach left the band in late 1996 after an argument with Bolan who turned down an opening slot on the Kiss reunion tour even though Bach had already booked it. The other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on Snake's answering machine telling them the band would never be too big to open for Kiss along with a number of insults; this resulted in Snake telling Bach that he would never work with him again. Dangerous Toys vocalist Jason McMaster revealed in a May 2020 interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast that, during this period, he was approached by Sabo and Bolan to audition for Skid Row as Bach's replacement, but turned it down as he was "just not a huge fan" and "was trying to get Toys back on the road." McMaster also recalled: "Sebastian was gone, so whatever year he was gone [is when they got in touch with me]. When he left, and here's a campfire, and Snake and Rachel are sitting around: 'Well, who do we wanna try out?' And my name was on the list." Bolan had a side project, the punk band Prunella Scales. The rift between Bach and the other band members subsequently led to his leaving Skid Row. Four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour. In 1998 Skid Row released the compilation 40 Seasons: The Best of Skid Row without Bach's input. After Bach's departure, the remaining members continued as Ozone Monday with singer Shawn McCabe of Mars Needs Women. In 1998 and 1999, the group opened up for Kiss and Mötley Crüe under the new moniker. Thickskin and Revolutions per Minute (1999–2008) Skid Row re-formed in 1999 with new lead vocalist Johnny Solinger and drummer Phil Varone. After re-forming, the band opened for Kiss on its farewell tour, and also played with other 1980s metal bands such as Poison and INXS's bassist Garry Gary Beers. In 2002 they were part of the Rock Never Stops Tour. Skid Row released its fourth full-length studio album Thickskin in the summer of 2003, which was the first album to feature Solinger and its first studio album in 8 years. In 2004, Dave Gara was announced as the new drummer. The fifth Skid Row album Revolutions per Minute was released in October 2006 by SPV Records. Wagener reunited with Skid Row and became this album's producer. In 2007, the band recorded "Jingle Bells" for a Monster Ballads Christmas album. In January 2008 they performed as part of the Motley Cruise with Mötley Crüe, Ratt and Slaughter. In early 2010 Rob Hammersmith became the band's new drummer. United World Rebellion Chapter I and II: Rise of the Damnation Army (2009–2016) Speaking in 2009 about the next Skid Row album, Hill said "we haven't sat down and recorded anything yet, but we have sat down and worked out some ideas and just played them on a handheld recorder. Everybody's writing and we're getting into that mind set. Once the wheels get in motion we'll all probably fly out to Atlanta spend a week or two up there come home, go back up there do it again, we're all living in different cities, which can make it difficult at times." In February 2013 Skid Row signed with Megaforce Records, and stated the new material would be released as three separate EPs. The first chapter United World Rebellion: Chapter One, was released in April 2013, with two more EPs set to follow in the following 12 to 18 months. In February 2014, the band began working on the second EP. In August 2014, Skid Row released the second chapter of the trilogy titled Rise of the Damnation Army. In February 2015, Skid Row announced they were writing the third chapter of the United World Rebellion series. In April, Solinger was fired from the band., and the same day it was announced that Tony Harnell, formerly of the Norwegian melodic metal band TNT, would replace Solinger. That same month the band released a re-recorded version of its early single "18 and Life" as a free download. United World Rebellion Chapter III (2016–present) Harnell left Skid Row in December 2015, and former DragonForce vocalist ZP Theart was filling in as the lead singer for concerts in 2016. In January 2017, ZP Theart was named as an official member of the band. In March 2018, it was revealed the band's next release for the United World Rebellion trilogy would now be a full-length album and would be released sometime in 2019. In January 2019, a deluxe edition of Skid Row's self-titled debut album was released digitally, which included the original album remastered for the first time (with "Forever" added as the bonus track), as well as a recording of the band's April 28, 1989 performance at The Marquee in Westminster, California. The band members have stated that they had no input into the reissue. In the summer of 2019, former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach announced plans to perform the band's self-titled debut album in its entirety on tour as a celebration of its 30th anniversary, and issued an open invitation for the band to play on stage with him for the first time since their split, hoping it would result in a proper Skid Row reunion with Bach. Guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo declined the offer, while former drummer Rob Affuso subsequently confirmed that he would be joining Bach on stage during the tour. On June 26, 2021, former vocalist Johnny Solinger died one month after revealing that he was suffering from liver failure. Band members Current members Dave "The Snake" Sabo – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Rachel Bolan – bass, backing vocals (1986–1996, 1999–present) Scotti Hill – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals (1987–1996, 1999–present) Rob Hammersmith – drums, backing vocals (2010–present) ZP Theart – lead vocals (2016–present) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Discography Studio albums Skid Row (1989) Slave to the Grind (1991) Subhuman Race (1995) Thickskin (2003) Revolutions per Minute (2006) References External links 1986 establishments in New Jersey Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey Atlantic Records artists American hard rock musical groups Musical groups established in 1986 Musical groups disestablished in 1996 Musical groups reestablished in 1999 Musical quintets American glam metal musical groups	false	[ "Thilo Herrmann (born September 19, 1964 in Mühlhausen, East Germany) is a German heavy metal guitarist and songwriter, who recently worked with Grave Digger.\n\nHistory\nPrior to joining his latest band Grave Digger in 2007, Herrmann has played with a lot of other different kinds of metal bands. One of the first bigger bands he played with in his career was the heavy metal/hard rock band Faithful Breath (earlier a progressive rock band), which he joined in 1985. That band changed their name to Risk some years after he joined the band. He did not record anything on their first album as Risk, which is called The Daily Horror News. He did come back however in 1989, and during this time in the band he recorded one EP and two albums and then left them again.\n\nIn 1994 Thilo was recruited as guitarist for the famous German heavy metal band Running Wild, where he played on their album Black Hand Inn, as well as three other albums. He left the band in 2001 about a year after their album Victory was released.\n\nSeveral years later, Grave Digger was planning to add a second guitarist for the first time ever during their existence. A competition was held at the official Grave Digger homepage where the fans could guess who the new second guitarist would be. On October 8, 2007 it was revealed that it was Thilo. He played his first gig with the band on October 31 in Zeche Bochum. Thilo left Grave Digger in February 2009.\n\nApart from those bands, he has also played with Steel Dragon, Höllenhunde, Glenmore, and Holy Moses during a period in 1988. He did not record anything with any of these bands, though.\n\nDiscography\n\nFaithful Breath\nSkol (1985)\nLive (1986)\n\nRisk\nRatman [EP] (1989)\nHell’s Animals (1989)\nDirty Surfaces (1990)\n\nRunning Wild\nThe Privateer [EP] (1994)\nBlack Hand Inn (1994)\nMasquerade (1995)\nThe Rivalry (1998)\nVictory (2000)\n\nGrave Digger\nPray [EP] (2008)\nBallads of a Hangman (2009)\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Grave Digger-homepage\nRisk's page @ BNRMetal.com\nGlenmore page @ Metal-archives.net\n\nGerman guitarists\nGerman male guitarists\nLiving people\n1964 births", "Many notable bands originally went by different names before their mainstream breakthrough. This list of original names of bands list only former official band names that are significantly different from the eventual \"famous\" name. This list does not include former band names that have only minor differences, such as stylisation changes, with the band's final band name.\n\nThe bands listed here must be notable, can be from any genre of music, and includes vocal groups whose members do not play instruments.\n\nList\nThis is a sortable list, ordered alphabetically, starting with the name that the band is best known as, followed by the band's original name, and any other names they previously used (in chronological order).\n\nSee also \n List of band name etymologies\n\nReferences \n\nLists of bands" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History" ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	What is the history of The Darkness band?	1	What is the history of The Darkness band?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	false	[ "Drown in Darkness – The Early Demos is a compilation album featuring the music of Paradise Lost from their demos made in 1988 and 1989. Tracks one through three is taken from the band's 1988 demo \"Paradise Lost\"; tracks four through six is taken from the band's 1989 demo \"Frozen Illusion\"; tracks seven through twelve is taken from the band's other 1989 demo \"Plains of Desolation\". There was a seven minute, twelve second trailer of this demo, where most of the band members behind the demos were interviewed concerning the demos and the time surrounding the recording and releasing of the demos.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Drown in Darkness\" – 4:38\n \"Internal Torment\" – 5:05\n \"Morbid Existence\" – 2:38\n \"Paradise Lost\" – 5:24\n \"Internal Torment\" – 5:40\n \"Frozen Illusion\" – 5:16\n \"Internal Torment\" (live) – 4:40\n \"Our Saviour\" (live) – 5:56\n \"Plains of Desolation\" (live) – 4:10\n \"Drown in Darkness\" (live) – 4:37\n \"Paradise Lost\" (live) – 5:34\n \"Nuclear Abomination\" (live) – 3:48\n\nPersonnel\nNick Holmes - vocals \nGregor Mackintosh - guitars\nAaron Aedy - guitars\nSteve Edmondson - bass\nMatthew Archer - drums\n\nReferences\n\n2009 compilation albums\nParadise Lost (band) albums", "Weapons of Tomorrow is the sixth studio album by the American thrash metal band Warbringer. Following the success of Woe to the Vanquished (2017), it is the first album to feature Chase Bryant on bass. During its first week of release, it reached #63 in the Belgian charts.\n\nBackground and lyrics\nSpeaking about the album, lead singer John Kevill said he sees this album as \"a 2.0 stage of the band\" and that \"this is, as far as what we've achieved as a band, the definitive era.\" He drew inspiration from many sources for the album, including Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. In reference to the song Heart of Darkness, \"At the heart of all of this large scale human evil that you get is this question of if you could rule and dominate your fellow man, would you? I think that the ugly true answer is that for a lot of people, most people believe yes is the answer. [...] The song is about unpacking all that and dealing with the fact that that's the world we're standing on.\"\n\nRelease\nThe album's title and artwork were revealed in February 2020, along with the release of a rerecording of 2019's single Firepower Kills for the album. In the months following the release of the album, Napalm Records released a documentary about the album on YouTube in which the band discussed the history of each song.\n\nCritical reception\n\nDom Lawson of Blabbermouth praised the \"imaginative spirit\" and \"flat-out, swivel-eyed thrash fucking metal\", saying \"[the album] feels like the kind of thrash metal album that bands used to make in the genre's glory days.\" Fraser Wilson of Distorted Sound lauded the opening track Firepower Kills, saying \"This is modern thrash at its very best.\" Calling the album \"lyrically stunning and musically eviscerating\", he highlighted Heart of Darkness as \"a real standout\", saying it \"showcases the sonic range of the band.\" Jonathan Smith of Sonic Perspectives called the album \"genius\" and \"stylistically intricate\", saying \"Warbringer have definitely hit a sweet spot\" with the album. He highlighted \"Crushed Beneath The Tracks' and \"Power Unsurpassed\", calling them \"punchy riff monsters.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nWarbringer\nJohn Kevill – vocals\nChase Becker – lead guitar\nAdam Carroll - rhythm guitar\nChase Bryant – bass\nCarlos Cruz – drums\n\nAdditional personnel\nMike Plotnikoff - production\nZack Ohren - mixing\nJustin Schturtz - mastering\nAndreas Marschall - artwork\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\nWarbringer albums\n2020 albums\nNapalm Records albums" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire." ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	How successful was this band?	2	How successful was The Darkness band?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal.	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	true	[ "\"How Can I Fall?\" is a song by British band Breathe, written by the group members David Glasper and Marcus Lillington. It was released in June 1988 as the second single from their debut studio album, All That Jazz (1988). In the United Kingdom, \"How Can I Fall?\" was the third single from the album, following \"Hands to Heaven\" and the UK-only release \"Jonah\".\n\nThe song was successful in the United States where it peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Internationally, \"How Can I Fall\" reached the top 40 in the Belgium and Netherlands; however, in the United Kingdom it peaked solely at #48.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSingle release info at discogs.com\n \n\n1987 songs\nBreathe (British band) songs\n1988 singles\nVirgin Records singles\nA&M Records singles\n1980s ballads\nRock ballads", "\"I Only Lie When I Love You\" is a song by English hard rock band Royal Blood, released as the second overall single from their second studio album How Did We Get So Dark? on June 8, 2017.\n\nThe song was written by the band and was produced by Jolyon Thomas and Tom Dalgety with Royal Blood. It reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and number sixteen on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, becoming the band's second-most successful single on the latter chart.\n\nPromotion \nThe track was released as the third overall single from the band's second album How Did We Get So Dark? released on June 8, 2017. It was later serviced to U.S. rock radio formats as the second U.S. radio single on October 3, 2017.\n\nMusic video \nThe music video for \"I Only Lie When I Love You\" was released on June 8, 2017 and was directed by Pascal Teixeira. It features the band performing on a white backdrop and a rolling shot that features distorted angles of the band.\n\nPersonnel\nMike Kerr – vocals, bass, keyboards, production\nBen Thatcher – drums, percussion, piano, production\nJolyon Thomas – production, engineering\nDrew Bang – engineering\nTom Dalgety – mixing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"I Only Lie When I Love You\" music video on YouTube\n\n2017 songs\n2017 singles\nRoyal Blood (band) songs\nWarner Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Tom Dalgety" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.", "How successful was this band?", "and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal." ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	How did the gig end up?	3	How did the Carling Homecoming gig end up?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	false	[ "The Cornish Pilot Gig Association (or CPGA) is a body which governs the sport of Cornish pilot gig racing. As of August 2006 the association consists of 44 clubs and 115 registered gigs. This does not include gigs used in the Isles of Scilly.\n\nHistory of the Cornish Pilot Gig Association\nThe first 'gigs' were built in the late 18th century and were used to carry the 'pilot' out to ships waiting off the Cornish coasts.\n\nThe pilot would then navigate the ship through the potentially hazardous rocks into the harbour.\n\nPilots needed to row out to the ships quickly - it was a competitive career as the first man to reach the waiting ship would receive the pilot's fee. Gig racing evolved both from this competition and from the testing of newly built gigs against others to measure their performance.\n\nCompetitive gig racing was popular in Cornwall during the mid-19th century, but by the end of the century began to decline as the industrial revolution gathered speed and engines increasingly replaced sails and oars.\n\nMany gigs were subsequently broken up or left to rot, but Newquay in Cornwall managed to retain a few and formed Newquay Rowing Club in 1921.\n\nOne of their boats, 'Treffry' built in 1838 still races and is used as the standard measurement for the construction of all new boats.\n\nNewquay Rowing Club also owns two other historic gigs: 'Dove' built in 1820 and 'Newquay' built in 1812 - which is considered to be the oldest rowing boat in the world.\n\nBetween 1985 and 1986 four new gig clubs were formed (Truro, Cadgwith, Roseland and Mount's Bay). This was in addition to Newquay Rowing Club (formed in 1922) and the small number of rowing clubs that existed around the coast.\n\nDuring 1986 George Northey (Newquay Rowing Club), John Bawden and Ralph Bird all felt that a specification should be laid down as to how the new gigs should be built.\n\nA meeting was called for 5 December 1986, with total of 14 gentlemen attending. It was decided that the new gigs would be built to the specification laid down by the Peters family, which built the gigs 'Treffry' (1838), which is still actively rowed by the Newquay Rowing Club. It was decided that there would only be one officer which would be elected as the chairperson and he would carry out the measuring of the gig during the construction phase to make sure the gig complied with the new specifications.\n\nThe committee met again in the January 1987 at the Royal Hotel in Truro and accepted the plans that had been drawn up by Ralph Bird. In the meeting it was decided that the association would be called the Cornish Pilot Gig Association.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe official homepage of the Cornish Pilot Gig Association\nSwanage Sea Rowing Club\nZennor Gig Club (Penzance)\n\nReferences\n\"Cornish Pilot Gig Association - About us\" by information supplied by Ralph Bird - President of the Cornish Pilot Gig Association and life member of the CPGA, retrieved 25 August 2006\n\nRowing governing bodies\nPilot Gig\nRowing in England\nTraditional boats", "Made for Each Other is a 1971 American romantic comedy film directed by Robert B. Bean.\n\nBoth starring and written by the husband and wife team of Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna, the film traces the relationship of Pandora and Giggy, a seemingly incompatible couple who meet in a group therapy session and fall in love.\n\nThe film was the second screenplay written by the couple (Lovers and Other Strangers being their first), and is also Bologna's film debut. In addition, there are early screen appearances from Paul Sorvino, Candice Azzara and Olympia Dukakis.\n\nPlot\nOn Christmas Eve, Guido “Gig” Panimba (Joseph Bologna) and Pandora “Panda” Gold (Renee Taylor) each morosely wander the streets of Manhattan and later join an emergency group therapy meeting designed to help the participants break self-destructive patterns. Each person lists his or her neuroses, ranging from bed-wetting to paranoia.\n\nWhen it is Panda's turn, we learn she is there on her 4th emergency session. She declares herself a failure as an actress, singer, dancer and woman, and launches into a long description of her life and many disastrous love affairs. We learn about Panda's past, in which her mother repeatedly assures her that she will be famous while her father repeatedly abandons them for affair after affair. To escape her unhappy home life, young Panda immerses herself in Hollywood movies, often imitating movie stars such as Rita Hayworth. By the time she is nineteen, Panda tries to attract her father's attention by displeasing him, and to that end moves in with a married, Chinese boyfriend. When her father learns of this, he dies of a heart attack, and at the funeral, his many lovers hysterically blame Panda for his demise. Her next boyfriend ends up leaving her for another man. She works as a hostess of a television quiz show and a nightclub performer, but she gives up both professions to go live in England with her latest boyfriend, whom she caught sleeping with two other women. Panda then enthusiastically announces her \"comeback\" at an upcoming cabaret revue and invites everyone in the session to come and see her.\n\nGig, a newcomer to therapy, claims that he has no problems, and when the other participants goad him to be honest, he gets up to leave. Within minutes, however, he returns and announces that he caused his last girlfriend to attempt suicide. Gig recounts his past. He has little privacy from his parents and sisters and is made to feel guilty about his sexual urges. After his mother convinces him that love requires purity, and lust must be violently purged, Gig begins to treat women cruelly and eventually tries to join the seminary, but is soon caught in a tryst with a maid. Gig briefly joins the military, where he embraces an enemy soldier in joy upon learning that the man is not dead. Returning to America, Gig fails to prosper in his father's barbershop and instead goes back to college, where his African studies major horrifies his parents. He then embarks on relationship after relationship, leaving each woman in heartbreak until the latest, tried to kill herself.\n\nAt the meeting, some of the women berate him but Panda is sympathetic. After the session, Gig and Panda get to talking and end up having sex in his car. While having sex, Panda accidentally blurts out that she loves him, after the encounter, Gig responds coldly and dismisses her. After some encouragement from the doctor who ran the session, Panda calls Gig in an attempt to scold him for his treatment of her, but she ends up inviting him to dinner. There, he enjoys the food but then readies to leave, promising to return later to have sex after the party he's going to. As he walks out the door, Panda screams after him that she will no longer accept being treated poorly. After she collapses on her bed, he returns silently and asks what they should do next.\n\nGig reluctantly agrees to Panda's suggestion that they move in together, hoping to break his pattern of abusiveness. Gig finds he is able to really open up to Panda and he playfully helps Panda to overcome her inability to achieve orgasm. On New Year's Eve, Panda's mother appears, reminding Panda that she is late for her night club comeback. Ignoring her mother's disapproval of Gig, Panda rushes to prepare for her act and insists that Gig join them. He is appalled, however, by her act, a painfully amateurish song-and-dance number in which she asks the audience to create a new identity for her. Later, when she asks his opinion, he admits he did not understand it, prompting her mother to lash out at him. Panda asks her to leave, and later at a café asks Gig for more constructive criticism. Upon learning that she has worked on the show for five years, Gig explodes that the act is awful and states that she embarrassed herself and him. Panda runs out and Gig follows, but on the street they fight and ultimately go their separate ways. Panda goes home alone and realizes her act is actually awful and that Gig was right. Meanwhile, Gig tries to sleep with another woman only to find himself impotent with her.\n\nThe next day, Panda shows up at Gig's apartment and they make up. Learning that he is going to visit his parents, she insists on joining him, and on the way urges him to introduce her as his girl friend. Gig's large family seems welcoming to Panda until they ask how she met Gig and she responds with a long story about their encounter group and the necessity of escaping the psychological wounds inflicted by their parents. Soon, Gig's mother is screaming at her to leave and Gig shouts back that she must apologize to Panda. She concludes that she will not attend their wedding because Panda is Jewish and her views are so different from their own. Gig's father chastises her for overreacting and declares that they're just having fun, and clearly Gig would never marry Panda. To prove Panda is not Gig's type, he brings out a photo of Gig's first love, a slim Italian teenager. This visibly upsets Gig who decides to get up and leave with Panda, while his family screams after them.\n\nIn the car, Gig starts to pick apart his parents, and their comments about Panda. However, Panda tells him that some of their comments about her (particularly her physical features) were accurate. This causes Gig to fly into a rage, because she's agreeing with his parents after all the nasty things they said, so he begins to berate her as well, eventually breaking up with her and forcing her to get out of the car. Panda walks off, but Gig immediately follows her. Eventually, after a lot of arguing, the two break down crying and Gig admits he really loves Panda and the two decide to get engaged.\n\nPrincipal cast\n Renée Taylor as Pandora Gold\n Joseph Bologna as Giggy Panimba\n Paul Sorvino as Mr. Panimba\n Olympia Dukakis as Mrs. Panimba\n Helen Verbit as Mrs. Gold \n Louis Zorich as Mr. Gold \n Norman Shelly as Dr. Furro\n Candice Azzara as Sheila \n Peggy Pope as Group member\n\nSee also\n List of American films of 1971\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The New York Times, December 13, 1971\n \"Ethnic Cartoons\", Time Magazine, December 27, 1971\n \n \n\n1970s romantic comedy-drama films\n20th Century Fox films\nAmerican films\nAmerican romantic comedy-drama films\nEnglish-language films\nFilms set in New York City\nFilms shot in New York City" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.", "How successful was this band?", "and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal.", "How did the gig end up?", "I don't know." ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	What are some other important aspects to the history of The Darkness?	4	What are some important aspects other than the Carling Homecoming gig to the history of The Darkness?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse,	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	false	[ "Scotobiology is the study of biology as directly and specifically affected by darkness, as opposed to photobiology, which describes the biological effects of light.\n\nOverview\nThe science of scotobiology gathers together under a single descriptive heading a wide range of approaches to the study of the biology of darkness. This includes work on the effects of darkness on the behavior and metabolism of animals, plants, and microbes. Some of this work has been going on for over a century, and lays the foundation for understanding the importance of dark night skies, not only for humans but for all biological species.\n\nThe great majority of biological systems have evolved in a world of alternating day and night and have become irrevocably adapted to and dependent on the daily and seasonally changing patterns of light and darkness. Light is essential for many biological activities such as sight and photosynthesis. These are the focus of the science of photobiology. But the presence of uninterrupted periods of darkness, as well as their alternation with light, is just as important to biological behaviour. Scotobiology studies the positive responses of biological systems to the presence of darkness, and not merely the negative effects caused by the absence of light.\n\nEffects of darkness\nMany of the biological and behavioural activities of plants, animals (including birds and amphibians), insects, and microorganisms are either adversely affected by light pollution at night or can only function effectively either during or as the consequence of nightly darkness. Such activities include foraging, breeding and social behavior in higher animals, amphibians, and insects, which are all affected in various ways if light pollution occurs in their environment. These are not merely photobiological phenomena; light pollution acts by interrupting critical dark-requiring processes. \n \nBut perhaps the most important scotobiological phenomena relate to the regular periodic alternation of light and darkness. These include breeding behavior in a range of animals, the control of flowering and the induction of winter dormancy in many plants, and the operational control of the human immune system. In many of these biological processes the critical point is the length of the dark period rather than that of the light. For example, \"short-day\" and \"long-day\" plants are, in fact, \"long-night\" and \"short-night\" respectively. That is to say, plants do not measure the length of the light period, but of the dark period. One consequence of artificial light pollution is that even brief periods of relatively bright light during the night may prevent plants or animals (including humans) from measuring the length of the dark period, and therefore from behaving in a normal or required manner. This is a critical aspect of scotobiology, and one of the major areas in the study of the responses of biological systems to darkness.\n\nIn discussing scotobiology, it is important to remember that darkness (the absence of light) is seldom absolute. An important aspect of any scotobiological phenomenon is the level and quality (wavelength) of light that is below the threshold of detection for that phenomenon and in any specific organism. This important variable in scotobiological studies is not always properly noted or examined. There are substantial levels of natural light pollution at night, of which moonlight is usually the strongest. For example, plants that rely on night length to program their behaviour have the capacity to ignore full moonlight during an otherwise dark night. If this ability had not evolved, plants would not be able to respond to changing night-length for such behavioural programs as the initiation of flowering and the onset of dormancy. On the other hand, some animal behavioural patterns are strongly responsive to moonlight. It is thus most important in any scotobiological study to determine the threshold level of light that may be required to interfere with or negate the normal pattern of dark-night activity.\n\nEtymology\nIn 2003, at a symposium on the Ecology of the Night held in Muskoka, Canada, discussion centered around the many effects of night-time light pollution on the biology of a wide range of organisms, but it went far beyond this in describing darkness as a biological imperative for the functioning of biological systems. Presentations focused on the absolute requirement of darkness for many aspects of normal behaviour and metabolism of many organisms and for the normal progression of their life cycles. Because there was no suitable term to describe the Symposium's main focus, the term scotobiology was introduced. The word is derived from the Greek scotos, σκότος, \"dark,\" and relates to photobiology, which describes the biological effects of light (φῶς, phos; root: φωτ-, phot-). The term scotobiology appears not to have been used previously, although related terms such as skototropism and scotophyle have appeared in the literature.\n\nSee also\n\nDark-sky movement\nDark-sky preserve\nEcological light pollution\nLight effects on circadian rhythm\nPhotoperiodism\nSky brightness\n\nReferences\n\nBranches of biology", "Charles Marlow is a fictional English seaman and recurring character in the work of novelist Joseph Conrad.\n\nRole of Marlow in novels by Conrad\nMarlow narrates several of Conrad's best-known works such as the novels Lord Jim (1900) and Chance (1913), as well as the framed narrative in Heart of Darkness (1899), and his short story \"Youth\" (1898). In Lord Jim, Marlow narrates but has a role in the story, finding a place for Jim to live, twice. Raymond Malbone considers that Marlow is the main character in Lord Jim, as \"the theme of the novel rests in what Jim's story means to Marlow rather than in what happens to Jim.\"\n\nThe stories are not told entirely from Marlow's perspective, however. There is also an omniscient narrator who introduces Marlow and some of the other characters. Once introduced, Marlow then proceeds to tell the main tale, creating a story-within-a-story effect.\n\nIn Heart of Darkness the omniscient narrator observes that \"yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical [...] and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze.\"\n\nInspiration \nMarlow's name may be inspired by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Conrad's father was a translator of William Shakespeare who doubtless would have known of Marlowe's work as well. Some intertextual interpretations of Heart of Darkness have suggested that Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus may have influenced Conrad. Charles Marlow describes a character as a \"papier-mâché Mephistopheles\", a reference to the Faust legend. Marlow's and Kurtz's journey up the Congo River in Heart of Darkness also has similarities to another work by Marlowe, Dido, Queen of Carthage, in which Aeneas is stranded on the shore of Libya and meets the African queen Dido.\n\nReferences\n\nOther sources \n \n \n\nAuthor surrogates\nCharacters in British novels of the 20th century\nLiterary characters introduced in 1899\nFictional British people\nFictional English people\nJoseph Conrad characters" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.", "How successful was this band?", "and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal.", "How did the gig end up?", "I don't know.", "What are some other important aspects to the history of The Darkness?", "The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse," ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	Who is Sue Whitehouse?	5	Who is Sue Whitehouse?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse,	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	false	[ "Nurse is a British sitcom broadcast on BBC Two, written by Paul Whitehouse, David Cummings and Esther Coles. It is about a community mental health nurse (Esther Coles) who visits her patients in their homes and is based on the sessions she has with these patients (most of whom are played by Paul Whitehouse), other actors who play patients include Cecilia Noble, Rosie Cavaliero, Simon Day, Jason Maza, Vilma Hollingbery, Jo Enright and Sue Elliot Nichols. The first series started broadcasting on 10 March 2015 and finished broadcasting on 31 March 2015.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n2015 British television series debuts\n2015 British television series endings\n2010s British black comedy television series\n2010s British comedy-drama television series\n2010s British medical television series\n2010s British sitcoms\n2010s British television miniseries\nBBC comedy-drama television shows\nBBC high definition shows\nBBC television miniseries\nBBC television sitcoms\nEnglish-language television shows\nTelevision shows set in the United Kingdom", "Sue Hamilton is a British archaeologist and Professor of Prehistory at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. A material culture specialist and landscape archaeologist, she became the UCL Institute of Archaeology's first permanent female director in September 2014.\n\nEducation \nSue Hamilton studied archaeology at school and at the University of Edinburgh before transferring to the (then) Institute of Archaeology, UCL, where she gained a BA in Archaeology. She was awarded a PhD from the University of London in 1993 for her thesis on First Millennium BC Pottery Traditions in Southern Britain.\n\nCareer \nPrior to joining the Institute of Archaeology in 1990, Sue Hamilton taught archaeology at Birkbeck College and the Polytechnic of North London. Her early research focused on later British prehistory and pottery and she was a contributor to the UK Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group's, The Study of Later Prehistoric Pottery: Guidelines for Analysis and Publication (1991), which has been widely used by prehistoric pottery specialists ever since. Working alongside Christopher Tilley and Barbara Bender, from 1995 to 2000, she was co-director of the Bodmin Moor Landscapes Project (better known as the Leskernick Project), a seminal study in archaeological phenomenology, focusing on the moor's Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes, and published in the book, Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology (2007). This work was followed, from 2002 to 2013, by the Tavoliere-Gargano Prehistory Project, which she co-directed with Ruth Whitehouse, and in which the principals of sensory archaeology, developed out of the Leskernick Project, were worked through in the context of the Neolithic villaggi trincerati (ditched villages) of southeast Italy. Her work on this project was published in a much referred to European Journal of Archaeology article, Phenomenology in Practice (2006), and in the book Neolithic Spaces (2020). Overlapping with the Tavoliere Project, from 2006 to 2015, she was co-director with Colin Richards, of the AHRC-funded Rapa Nui Landscapes of Construction Project, researching the archaeological and landscape contexts of Rapa Nui/ Easter Island's celebrated moai. In doing so, she and Professor Richards became \"the first British archaeologists to work on the island since 1914.\" The Rapa Nui Landscapes of Construction Project is ongoing under her leadership.\n\nAfter a distinguished career in research, teaching and university administration, Sue Hamilton became the first permanent female director of the UCL Institute of Archaeology on 1 September 2014.\n\nBibliography (selected)\n\n Hamilton, Sue; Manley, John (2001). \"Hillforts, Monumentality and Place: A chronological and topographic review of first millennium BC hillforts of south-east England.\" European Journal of Archaeology. 4 (1): 7–42. https://doi.org/10.1179%2Feja.2001.4.1.7\nHamilton, Sue (2002). \"Between ritual and routine: interpreting British prehistoric pottery production and distribution.\" In Woodward, Ann; Hill, J.D. (eds), Prehistoric Britain: The Ceramic Basis, 38–53. Oxford: Oxbow. . \nHamilton, Sue; Whitehouse, Ruth (2006). \"Phenomenology in practice; towards a methodolgy for a subjective approach.\" European Journal of Archaeology. 9 (1): 31–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461957107077704\n Hamilton, Sue; Whitehouse, Ruth; Wright, Katherine, eds. (2006). Archaeology and Women: Ancient and Modern Issues. London: UCL Press. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Rq8YDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false\n Bender, Barbara; Hamilton, Sue; Tilley, Christopher (2007). Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexive in Landscape Archaeology. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Stone_Worlds/a6MYDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0\nHamilton, Sue (2007). \"Cultural choices in the ‘British Eastern Channel Area' in the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age.\" In Haselgrove, Colin; Moore, Tom (eds), The Later Iron Age in Britain and Beyond, 81–106. Oxford: Oxbow. .\nHamilton, Sue; Seager Thomas, Mike; Whitehouse, Ruth (2011). \"Say it with stone: constructing with stones on Easter Island.\" World Archaeology. 43 (2), 167–90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41308493?seq=1\nHamilton, Sue (2011). \"The ambiguity of landscape: discussing points of relatedness in concepts and methods.\" In Cochrane, Ethan; Gardner, Andrew (eds), Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies, 263–80. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.\nHamilton, Sue; Barrett, John (2013). \"Theory in the field.\" In Gardner, Andrew; Lake, Mark; Sommer, Ulrike (eds), Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Theory. Oxford: OUP. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199567942.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199567942-e-003\nHamilton, Sue (2016). \"Materialising island worlds.\" In Conrich, Ian; Mückler, Hermann (eds), Rapa Nui – Easter Island: Cultural and Historical Perspectives, 129–148. Berlin: Frank & Timme. https://archive.org/details/LOCHamiltonMaterialisingIslandWorlds2016\nHamilton, Sue; Seager Thomas, Mike (2018). \"Eroding heritage: an island context.\" Archaeology International. 21 (1), 64–74. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10079011/8/Hamilton_Eroding%20Heritage.%20An%20Island%20Context_VoR.pdf\n Hamilton, Sue; Whitehouse, Ruth (2020). Neolithic Spaces, Volume 1: Social and Sensory Landscapes of the First Farmers of Italy. London: Accordia Research Institute.\n\nReferences\n\nAcademics of University College London\nPeople associated with the UCL Institute of Archaeology\nEnglish archaeologists\nLiving people\nBritish women archaeologists\nFellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London\nBritish women historians\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nResearchers in Rapa Nui archaeology" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.", "How successful was this band?", "and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal.", "How did the gig end up?", "I don't know.", "What are some other important aspects to the history of The Darkness?", "The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse,", "Who is Sue Whitehouse?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse," ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	DId she help them become successful?	6	Did Sue Whitehouse help The Darkness become successful?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band,	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	true	[ "Rules-of-Renovation is an educational program that provides training in the real estate world, specifically home renovation. This program is designed by HGTV star, Hilary Farr from Love It or List It. Farr has many years of experience in real estate and interior design, and has designed Rules of Renovation to help others be successful in the renovation of houses.\n\nHistory\nHilary Farr is originally from Canada and was introduced to the real estate world at a young age, by helping her mother decorate her childhood home. Farr was able to move to Los Angeles, where she bought several properties and renovated them. In the beginning, she was working part-time jobs, but after a few years her talent for renovation of homes started to gain recognition.\n\nIn 2008, Farr was approached by the W Network to co-host the show Love It or List It, along with David Visentin. The show was broadcast on HGTV and the W Network. The show was originally based in Toronto, but in 2014, Love It or List It began its filming in North Carolina. Hilary Farr co-founded Rules of Renovation to give investors unique strategies on how to successfully renovate homes and then sell them. Investors looking to succeed in the field were invited to register for a free event to see how Rules of Renovation could help their business.\n\nConcept\nWhile renovating houses and then selling them has become a way for people to make a living, it did not mean that the process is without risk. An investor without the correct tools and strategies has a high chance of making mistakes and failing in the field. Rules of Renovation exploited this market by giving investors the tools for being successful using its trained coaches and their tactics.\n\nThis educational program has several different steps offered to investors. First, it starts with a free renovation training event that discusses the basics and shows investors how the program would help them to succeed in their renovations. The second step is a 3-Day Workshop that provides attendees with strategies tailored to each individual. The last step is the ongoing mentoring and coaching. Even after the investors leave the event, they would have access to the coaches and one-on-one trainings for future questions.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\nEducational programs", "Diane Latiker is a community activist in Chicago. Latiker is the founder of the nonprofit, Kids Off the Block (KOB), which provides recreational activities and educational opportunities for young people in Chicago, focusing on the neighborhood of Roseland.\n\nBiography \nLatiker never finished high-school, dropping out at age 16. She has worked in construction and as a cosmetologist. Latiker has lived in Roseland, Chicago, since 1988. She is the mother of eight children and 13 grandchildren. Latiker eventually remarried when she was 36 and earned her GED.\n\nWhen Latiker's daughter, Aisha, became a teen in 2003, Latiker began to worry that she would get involved in gang activity. Latiker's mother suggested that she help out the teens in the neighborhood. In 2003, Latiker literally turned her own home into a community center for young people. She sold her TV to buy used computers, and got rid of furniture to make space for kids in her home. She opened her house to the children in the neighborhood, letting them know she was available any time of the day to help. Latiker did not expect the idea to turn her home into a community center to become so popular, but in about 3 months, she had 75 kids visiting regularly. Latiker became known to the Roseland neighborhood as Ms. Diane.\n\nLatiker called her project Kids Off the Block (KOB) and started KOB because she felt that her community was \"plagued by violence, hopelessness and negativity.\" There were no places for kids in her neighborhood to play prior to opening KOB. Latiker is widely revered in her neighborhood, though she has also been threatened by \"gang bangers\" who have shot up her van. Her program provides young people an alternative to joining a gang. Latiker tries to help the young people who come to KOB in many ways, but especially by listening to them; \"The only way I can help them is if I listen and know what they need. In 2011, Latiker made it to the top ten of CNN Heroes.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Interview (BET)\n\nPeople from Chicago\nAmerican women activists\nAfrican-American activists" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.", "How successful was this band?", "and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal.", "How did the gig end up?", "I don't know.", "What are some other important aspects to the history of The Darkness?", "The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse,", "Who is Sue Whitehouse?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse,", "DId she help them become successful?", "According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band," ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	Is there anything else that's interesting about the article regarding their history?	7	Is there anything else other than The Darkness' Carling Homecoming gig and Sue Whitehouse that's interesting about the article regarding the history?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002.	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	true	[ "\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison", "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" ]
[ "The Darkness (band)", "History", "What is the history of The Darkness band?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire.", "How successful was this band?", "and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal.", "How did the gig end up?", "I don't know.", "What are some other important aspects to the history of The Darkness?", "The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse,", "Who is Sue Whitehouse?", "The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse,", "DId she help them become successful?", "According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band,", "Is there anything else that's interesting about the article regarding their history?", "Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002." ]	C_02dfdcf97e7946dc886f580b22b8d7f7_1	What happened after that?	8	What happened after Love Is Only A Feeling featured?	The Darkness (band)	The Darkness were directed by manager Sue Whitehouse, who had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles and their original band days as Empire. The Darkness were renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. The band already had music industry interest from their days as Empire through connections with Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only A Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band." As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. CANNOTANSWER	They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003.	The Darkness are a British rock band formed in Lowestoft, England, in 2000. The band consists of Justin Hawkins (lead vocals, lead guitar), his brother Dan Hawkins (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Frankie Poullain (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums, backing vocals). The Darkness came to prominence with the release of their debut album, Permission to Land, in 2003. Backed by the singles "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", "Growing on Me", "Get Your Hands off My Woman", and "Love Is Only a Feeling", the album was certified quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.3 million. In 2004 the band won three Brit Awards: Best British Group, Best British Rock Act, and Best British Album. After extensive touring in support of their debut album, Poullain left the band in 2005, and was replaced by former guitar technician Richie Edwards. The band's second studio album, One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back, was released in November 2005. The following year, Justin Hawkins departed from the band after successfully completing a course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine abuse. This, combined with the poor sales of the album, resulted in Atlantic dropping the band in October 2006. After the split, the remaining members formed Stone Gods, and continued to perform and record without Hawkins, who subsequently fronted his own project, Hot Leg. On 15 March 2011, The Darkness announced reunion shows, with original bassist Frankie Poullain, including Download Festival 2011, and the Isle of Wight Festival 2012. Their third album, Hot Cakes, was released on 20 August 2012. Original drummer Ed Graham then left the band, feeling the strain of touring was affecting his personal life, in which he had pressing issues. In 2015 a fourth studio album was announced, entitled Last of Our Kind, which was released on 2 June 2015. A fifth album, Pinewood Smile, was released on 6 October 2017 and one year later on 15 June 2018 a live album, Live at Hammersmith, was also released. Their sixth studio album, Easter Is Cancelled was released on 4 October 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their world tour in 2020, the band wound up the year with a one-off streamed live show titled "Streaming of a White Christmas", which was also recorded as a new live album and slated to be released on CD and vinyl in June 2021. On 4 June 2021, the band announced their seventh studio album Motorheart would be released on 15 October 2021 with an extensive UK tour through November and December 2021. History Early years Justin and Dan Hawkins played together as teenagers in a band which, according to Dan Hawkins, "did a lot of Marillion covers, Bruce Springsteen, Genesis" and were "a bit prog-y". Justin Hawkins had been initially inspired to play guitar by Brian May of Queen, as he loved his tone and vibrato. Originally known as Empire, the band generated some music industry buzz through their manager Sue Whitehouse, who was based at Savage & Best in Camden. Whitehouse had managed them since Justin Hawkins' time as a creator of music jingles. Renamed as The Darkness they became renowned for their live show, and such was the popularity of the band, they had a Carling Homecoming gig booked for the London Astoria before they had even signed a record deal. Joe Taylor, Aled Jones and Paul Scaife at The Tip Sheet first heard about the band through a post on The Tip Sheet message board, and featured Love Is Only a Feeling in January 2002. They started Record of the Day, and featured the song again around the time of SXSW in March 2003. They wanted to feature Friday Night too but they were told the band was saving it for an album. According to A&R Nick Raphael in an interview with HitQuarters, there was no initial clamour to sign the band, "There couldn't have been less of a buzz, and only two record labels showed any interest in them." He believes the reason for lack of interest was that "The business as a whole thought they were uncool. In fact, people were saying that they were a joke and that they weren't real." However, throughout their career critics around the world would label them as a "joke band". As part of Sony Music UK, Raphael had attempted to sign them, but the band instead opted to go with Atlantic Records. Permission to Land and commercial success (2003–2005) Their debut album, Permission to Land, went straight up to number two in the UK charts upon its release on 7 July 2003, before going to number one and staying there for four weeks, eventually going on to sell 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Darkness took inspiration for some of their work from the local north Suffolk area, including "Black Shuck" which mentions the nearby village of Blythburgh. The success of this album led to heavy touring for the band, including European portions of Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003. They then went on to headline the Carling Festival in 2004. The band won three BRIT Awards in 2004 in response to the album, Best Group, Best Rock Group and Best Album. They also won two Kerrang! awards in 2004 for Best Live Act and Best British Band. The third single from the album, "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", was a substantial hit in the UK as was their tilt at the Christmas 2003 number 1, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)", which only just fell short, both singles reaching number 2 in 2003. One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back and decline (2005–2006) In October 2005, a month before the album was to be officially released, Justin Hawkins won an eBay auction for a copy of One Way Ticket to Hell ...and Back for £350 under the username 'turbogunhawk'. He claimed he did this so that he could track down whoever sold the digitally-marked advance copy of the album and try to prevent it from happening again. "One Way Ticket", the first single from their second album, was released on 14 November 2005, debuting and peaking at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The album itself was released on 28 November 2005 to mixed reviews. The album was produced by rock producer Roy Thomas Baker, best known for his work with Queen. Early sales figures in the UK showed the album had not sold as well as its predecessor, Permission to Land. The album debuted at number 11, and fell to number 34 in the second week of its release. Although it has since reached platinum status, this contrasts with their debut's five times platinum status. The second single taken from their second album was "Is It Just Me?", released on 20 February 2006. The single gained a preliminary position of No. 6 all that week, but finally charted at number 8. The album's third single, "Girlfriend", was Released 22 May and charted at number 39. Justin Hawkins' departure and breakup (2006) In August 2006, lead singer Justin Hawkins was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic in concern of his health, which caused the band to cancel several concerts. Around this same time the band confirmed that they were to start working on their third album to be released early 2007. Tabloid rumours held that Justin Hawkins was leaving the band after completing his course of rehabilitation from alcohol and cocaine problems, and the band would continue without him, possibly with Richie Edwards as the front man. In response to the story being reported by the media, The Darkness confirmed on their official forum: "We're sorry that you had to find this out through the newspapers, but we were hoping until the last minute that this – Justin's exit – wasn't going to happen. We – Dan, Ed and Richie – are still in total shock and can't say at this stage what the future holds. We would like to thank all our fans, partners and family for their continuous support. You will hear from us, once we know what we want to do..." Hawkins departure, and the lacklustre sales of One Way Ticket to Hell... (which had only gone gold compared to the previous album's four-times platinum status), led to Atlantic dropping the band from the label. Using the pseudonym British Whale, Hawkins went on to release a cover version of the Sparks song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", reaching No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2007, he launched a failed attempt to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2011, Hawkins gave a different explanation for his departure from the band, saying he had left because he felt the band had stopped being creative. Other projects (2006–2011) On 9 November 2007, it was announced on The University of East Anglia's student union website that a new band had been created comprising Dan Hawkins (lead guitar), Toby MacFarlaine (bass), Ed Graham (drums) and Ritchie Edwards (vocals/guitar). The name of the band was The Stone Gods. In 2008, Justin Hawkins formed a new band, Hot Leg with Pete Rinaldi (of Anchorhead), Samuel SJ Stokes (formerly of The Thieves) and Darby Todd (from Protect the Beat). In 2009 Hot Leg released an album, Red Light Fever, which failed to make a dent on the charts (#81). Three singles were taken from it with two of them failing to chart. By December 2010, both Hot Leg and The Stone Gods were in hiatus. Reunion and Hot Cakes (2011–2013) In March 2011, the four original band members reunited. They played three warm-up shows in Norwich, Leamington and at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, before performing at the 2011 Download Festival. This was followed by an "intimate" show at London's 100 Club, which featured support from Dark Stares and notable appearances from Queen guitarist Brian May and comedian Rufus Hound. The band then toured Japan, the UK and Ireland. A new song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us", was released in February 2012 as a free download. They toured North America, playing with Crown Jewel Defense and Foxy Shazam, then performed at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden and the 18th Przystanek Woodstock. Singles "Every Inch of You" and "Everybody Have a Good Time" were released in May and June 2012, respectively, ahead of their third album, Hot Cakes, which came out in August. Throughout the summer The Darkness played a series of festival dates, including headlining the Big Top Tent at the 2012 Isle of Wight Festival, and were the opening act for the European and African leg of Lady Gaga's The Born This Way Ball world tour. A new non-album song, "The Horn", was released in late 2013 as a digital download. Last of Our Kind and new line-up (2014–2017) The band began work on their fourth studio album in September 2014, with Emily Dolan Davies replacing Ed Graham on drums. The new album, Last of Our Kind, was released on 2 June 2015, on the band's own label Canary Dwarf Records via Kobalt Label Services with a single, "Open Fire", released on 23 March. The first track from the album to be premiered was "Barbarian", which was released with an accompanying animated music video on 23 February. On 21 April 2015, the band issued a statement saying that drummer Davies had left the band. On 25 April 2015, it was announced via the band's official Facebook page that Rufus Taylor, the son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, was to join the band as Davies' replacement on drums. They were announced as the first headline act for Planet Rockstock 2015, taking place at Trecco Bay in South Wales from 4 to 7 December 2015. The Darkness closed the event on 6 December. On 20 November 2015, the band released a music video for a new Christmas single, entitled "I Am Santa" on their YouTube Channel, which it was announced would be included in the Deluxe edition of the Last of Our Kind album. Pinewood Smile (2017–2019) The Darkness worked on a feature-length documentary, directed by Simon Emmett. In a 2016 interview, Frankie Poullain said, "We are currently over a year in to a feature-length documentary which will surprise a lot of people." In March 2017, The Darkness announced that their 5th album would be released in 2017. This was confirmed in a July issue of Planet Rock, and later on the band's Facebook page. The album's title was later revealed as Pinewood Smile, and was due to be released on 6 October of the same year. The first single from the album 'All The Pretty Girls' was released on 22 July of that year. The band embarked on a winter tour of the UK in November and December 2017. In May 2017, The Darkness performed at the Australian touring music festival Groovin' the Moo, performing at six regional cities across Australia. They performed as a de facto opening act for the "headline act" of the festival, Violent Soho, and supported Guns N' Roses on the European leg of their tour. In December 2017, Justin & Dan Hawkins were contestants on the Pointless Celebrities Christmas special. In 2018, the band supported US supergroup Hollywood Vampires on their European tour, which included their first performances in UK arenas in several years. They also announced their first live album, Live at Hammersmith, a recording of their December 2017 concert at the Eventim Apollo in London. This was released on 15 June 2018. The band contributed theme music to the British children's television programme Catie's Amazing Machines which premiered on CBeebies in October 2018. Easter Is Cancelled (2019–2021) In 2019, The Darkness released their latest album Easter Is Cancelled on 4 October 2019 through Cooking Vinyl. Easter Is Cancelled became the band's fourth UK Top 10 album and topped the Official Charts Top 40 Rock And Metal Chart and the iTunes Rock Chart, while the record has achieved over 3 million streams on Spotify alone. The album was released to a generally positive response from music critics while the previous singles "Heart Explodes" and "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" proved a radio hit on the playlists of Radio 2, Absolute, Kerrang and more. The comedic video for "Rock and Roll Deserves to Die" has also individually surpassed 1 million views. In January 2020, the Darkness released a new video for "In Another Life" which featured model Abbey Clancy. The track then made the BBC Radio 2 B-List. The band commenced their UK tour of the Easter Is Cancelled album on 25 November 2019 in Ireland, culminating on 20 December at London's Roundhouse. In 2020, the band attempted a worldwide tour across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The tour abruptly ended in Adelaide, Australia on 15 March as the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders set in. The band returned to the UK for occasional shows and live streams where possible, with an aim to reschedule the remainder of the postponed New Zealand and North American dates in the future. In December the band played a one-off show at The IndigO2 in London. Initial plans to open the show and sound check to a limited audience were shut down at the last minute due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The show still went ahead but only accessible by live stream. The whole show was recorded for a live album titled Streaming Of A White Christmas, scheduled to be released on CD and vinyl in early 2021. Motorheart (2021–present) For most of the first half of 2021 the band remained largely quiet on social media. On June 4, 2021, the band announced they are set to release the new album Motorheart in October. The album was eventually released on November 19. The album's cover was also unveiled in the announcement. The album will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette tape and digital download. The first single, Motorheart was released in August. Along with the album release, the band announced an extensive list of UK tour dates to take place throughout November and December in support of the release of the album. Band members Current members Justin Hawkins – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards Dan Hawkins – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Frankie Poullain – bass, backing vocals Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals Former members Ed Graham – drums Chris McDougall – lead and rhythm guitar Richie Edwards – bass, backing vocals, keyboards Emily Dolan Davies – drums Touring members Darby Todd – drums Timeline Discography Studio albums Permission to Land (2003) One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) Hot Cakes (2012) Last of Our Kind (2015) Pinewood Smile (2017) Easter Is Cancelled (2019) Motorheart (2021) Awards and honours {\| 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=2\|Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards \| 2013 \| Themselves \| Showman of the Year \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| 2015 \| Last of Our Kind \| Album of the Year \| \|- ! scope="row" rowspan=4\|Kerrang! Awards \| rowspan=2\|2003 \| Themselves \| Best Live Act \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Permission to Land \| Best Album \| \|- \| rowspan=2\|2004 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best British Band \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Live Band \| \|- !scope="row"\|Mercury Prize \| 2003 \| Permission to Land \| Album of the Year \| \| \|- !scope="row" rowspan=2\|Pop Factory Awards \| rowspan=2\|2002 \| rowspan=2\|Themselves \| Best Pop Factory Performance \| \| rowspan=2\| \|- \| Best Pop Factory Debut \| 2003 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Single (Get Your Hands off My Woman) 2004 Metal Hammer 'Golden God' for Best Video ("Love Is Only a Feeling") Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters of the Year BRIT Award for Best British Group BRIT Award for Best Rock Act BRIT Award for Best British Album (Permission to Land) MTV Europe Music Award for Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Rock IFPI Platinum Europe Award for sales in Europe in excess of 1,000,000 (triple Platinum) (Permission to Land) Elle Style Award for Most Stylish Band Meteor Ireland Award for Best Album (Permission to Land) Smash Hits! Pollwinners' Party for Best Rock Award RIAA Digital Sales Certifications Gold Award for 100,000 downloads ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") European Border Breakers Award for debut albums of European acts achieving the best sales outside of their country of origin in 2003 (Permission to Land) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign New Act (nominated) Denmark GAFFA Award for Best Foreign Hit ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") (nominated) 2005 ASCAP Award for one of the Most Performed Works in the USA ("I Believe in a Thing Called Love") 2006 MTV Australia's Best Man Rock Video award ("One Way Ticket") 2008 VH1 The 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (94) 2011 VH1 The 100 Greatest Songs of '00s "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (87) 2020 Classic Rock magazine awarded "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" the number one spot on their Greatest Songs of the Century (so far) reader poll. See also Hot Leg Stone Gods References External links Atlantic Records artists Brit Award winners Comedy rock musical groups Cooking Vinyl artists English glam metal musical groups English hard rock musical groups English heavy metal musical groups Ivor Novello Award winners Kerrang! Awards winners Musical groups established in 1999 Musical groups disestablished in 2006 Musical groups reestablished in 2011 Musical groups from Suffolk Musical quartets Sibling musical groups PIAS Recordings artists MTV Europe Music Award winners 1999 establishments in England	true	[ "Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books", "What Happened to Jones may refer to:\n What Happened to Jones (1897 play), a play by George Broadhurst\n What Happened to Jones (1915 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1920 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1926 film), a silent film comedy" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society" ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	What were Shaw's first political activities?	1	What were George Bernard Shaw's first political activities?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "Martin Shaw (born 30 June 1947 in Driffield, Yorkshire, England) is a British sociologist and academic. He is a research professor of international relations at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals, emeritus professor of international relations and politics at Sussex University and a professorial fellow in international relations and human rights at Roehampton University. He is best known for his sociological work on war, genocide and global politics.\n\nAcademic career\nIn his Marxist period in the 1970s, Shaw published Marxism versus Sociology: A Guide to Reading and Marxism and Social Science: The Roots of Social Science. However, he developed a critique of Marxism, which he saw as incapable of fully analysing the problem of war, as he argued in Socialism and Militarism. He pioneered a new sociology of war and militarism, in his edited volume, War, State and Society and in Dialectics of War. In the 1990s he published two studies in this area: Post-Military Society and Civil Society and Media in Global Crises, a study of British responses to the 1991 Gulf War.\n\nShaw also entered debates in international relations, with his co-edited book State and Society in International Relations (1991) and his books Global Society and International Relations and Theory of the Global State: Globality as Unfinished Revolution. He founded The Global Site (2000), a portal for critical writing on global politics, culture and society, which also became a significant forum for academic debate after 9/11.\n\nIn the 2000s, Shaw's research returned to questions of war, now extended into the field of genocide, with four books: War and Genocide, The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq What is Genocide? and Genocide and International Relations.\n\nShaw was appointed a lecturer in sociology at the University of Durham (1970–72) and was lecturer, senior lecturer and reader in sociology at the University of Hull (1972–94) before becoming professor of international and political sociology (1994). The following year Shaw moved to a chair of international relations and politics at the University of Sussex, where he became a research professor in 2008. He joined Roehampton University in 2010 and the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals in 2011. He was a Leverhulme Fellow in 2000 and an ESRC research fellow in 2004 and 2005.\n\nActivities, commentary and research\nHe was active in European Nuclear Disarmament (1980–85) and a member of its national committee, as well as in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He criticised what he saw as the passivity of the political left in the face of the genocidal wars in Bosnia (1992–95) and Kosovo (1998–99). He continues his political commentary by writing for the website openDemocracy.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMartin Shaw on Twitter\nThe Global Site\nInterview with Martin Shaw by Theory Talks (18-04-2008)\n\n1947 births\nAcademics of Durham University\nAcademics of the University of Hull\nAcademics of the University of Sussex\nAlumni of the London School of Economics\nBritish sociologists\nAcademics of the University of Roehampton\nEnglish socialists\nLiving people\nSocialist Workers Party (UK) members\nMembers of Devon County Council\nPeople from Driffield\nLabour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates", "Herbert Shaw may refer to:\n\n Herbert H. Shaw (born 1930), perennial New Jersey political candidate\n Herbert John Shaw (1918–2006), professor of electrical engineering\n Herbert Kenneth Airy Shaw (1902–1985), English botanist and classicist" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF)," ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	Was he an active member?	2	Was George Bernard Shaw an active member of the Social Democratic Federation?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	false	[ "Vilhelm Mejdell (17 April 1904 – 1989) was a Norwegian marketing agent and sports official.\n\nHe was born in Kristiania. He was an active sportsperson in his youth, winning national championships in rowing (fours) in 1924 and 1929. He represented the club Norske Studenters RK. During World War II he was member of Milorg, and later of the Norwegian Home Guard. He was also an active pistol shooter, and served as president of the Norwegian Shooting Association from 1965 to 1968. He was an honorary member.\n\nMejdell graduated with the cand.oecon. degree in 1935. In 1945 he was hired in the adversiting agency Myres Reklamebyrå. He was later promoted to CEO, and remained here until his retirement. He died in 1989.\n\nReferences\n\n1904 births\n1989 deaths\nNorwegian male rowers\nNorwegian male sport shooters\nNorwegian sports executives and administrators\nNorwegian resistance members\nNorwegian marketing people\nRowers from Oslo", "Thomas Wainfleet (by 1463 – 1515), of Canterbury, Kent, was an English politician.\n\nFamily\nWainfleet was the son of Thomas Wainfleet of Canterbury. He was unmarried, but had an illegitimate son.\n\nCareer\nActive in local politics, he was a common councilman for Canterbury by 1500, an alderman by 1504 and mayor for 1514–15. In 1512, he was elected a Member of Parliament for Canterbury.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing\n15th-century births\n1515 deaths\nPeople from Canterbury\nMayors of Canterbury\nEnglish MPs 1512–1514" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know." ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?	3	Is there any additional information about George Bernard Shaw's time with the SDF?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "Chemical table file (CT File) is a family of text-based chemical file formats that describe molecules and chemical reactions. One format, for example, lists each atom in a molecule, the x-y-z coordinates of that atom, and the bonds among the atoms.\n\nFile formats \nThere are several file formats in the family.\n\nThe formats were created by MDL Information Systems (MDL), which was acquired by Symyx Technologies then merged with Accelrys Corp., and now called BIOVIA, a subsidiary of Dassault Systemes of Dassault Group.\n\nCT File is an open format, BIOVIA publishes its specification. BIOVIA requires users to register to download the CTFile format specifications.\n\nMolfile \n\nAn MDL Molfile is a file format for holding information about the atoms, bonds, connectivity and coordinates of a molecule. \n\nThe molfile consists of some header information, the Connection Table (CT) containing atom info, then bond connections and types, followed by sections for more complex information.\n\nThe molfile is sufficiently common that most, if not all, cheminformatics software systems/applications are able to read the format, though not always to the same degree. It is also supported by some computational software such as Mathematica.\n\nThe current de facto standard version is molfile V2000, although, more recently, the V3000 format has been circulating widely enough to present a potential compatibility issue for those applications that are not yet V3000-capable.\n\nCounts line block specification\n\nBond block specification \nThe Bond Block is made up of bond lines, one line per bond, with the following format:\n\n111 222 ttt sss xxx rrr ccc\n\nwhere the values are described in the following table:\n\nExtended Connection Table (V3000) \n\nThe extended (V3000) molfile consists of a regular molfile “no structure” followed by a single molfile appendix that contains the body of the connection table (Ctab). The following figure shows both an alanine structure and the extended molfile corresponding to it.\n\nNote that the “no structure” is flagged with the “V3000” instead of the “V2000” version stamp. There are two other changes to the header in addition to the version:\n The number of appendix lines is always written as 999, regardless of how many there actually are. (All current readers will disregard the count and stop at M END.)\n\n The “dimensional code” is maintained more explicitly. Thus “3D” really means 3D, although “2D” will be interpreted as 3D if any non-zero Z-coordinates are found.\nUnlike the V2000 molfile, the V3000 extended Rgroup molfile has the same header format as a non-Rgroup molfile.\n\nCounts line \nA counts line is required, and must be first. It specifies the number of atoms, bonds, 3D objects, and Sgroups. It also specifies whether or not the CHIRAL flag is set. Optionally, the counts line can specify molregno. This is only used when the regno exceeds 999999 (the limit of the format in the molfile header line). The format of the counts line is:\n\nSDF \n\nSDF is one of a family of chemical-data file formats developed by MDL; it is intended especially for structural information. \"SDF\" stands for structure-data file, and SDF files actually wrap the molfile (MDL Molfile) format. Multiple records are delimited by lines consisting of four dollar signs ($$$$). A feature of the SDF format is its ability to include associated data.\n\nAssociated data items are denoted as follows:\n> <Unique_ID>\nXCA3464366\n \n> <ClogP>\n5.825\n\n> <Vendor>\nSigma\n\n> <Molecular Weight>\n499.611\n \nMultiple-line data items are also supported. The MDL SDF-format specification requires that a hard-carriage-return character be inserted if a single line of any text field exceeds 200 characters. This requirement is frequently violated in practice, as many SMILES and InChI strings exceed that length.\n\nOther formats of the family \nThere are other, less commonly used formats of the family: \n RXNFile - for representing a single chemical reaction;\n RDFile - for representing a list of records with associated data. Each record can contain chemical structures, reactions, textual and tabular data;\n RGFile - for representing the Markush structures (deprecated, Molfile V3000 can represent Markush structures);\n XDFile - for representing chemical information in XML format.\n\nSee also\n Chemical file format#Converting Between Formats\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n SDF Toolkit free software to process SD files (SDF).\n NCI/CADD Chemical Identifier Resolver generates SD files (SDF) from chemical names, CAS Registry Numbers, SMILES, InChI, InChIKey, ....\n KNIME free software to manipulate data and do datamining, can also read and write SD files (SDF).\n Comparative Toxicology Dashboard service provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which generates SD files (SDF) from chemical names, CAS Registry Numbers, SMILES, InChI, InChIKey, ...\n\nComputational chemistry\nChemical file formats", "The concept of the stochastic discount factor (SDF) is used in financial economics and mathematical finance. The name derives from the price of an asset being computable by \"discounting\" the future cash flow by the stochastic factor , and then taking the expectation. This definition is of fundamental importance in asset pricing. \n\nIf there are n assets with initial prices at the beginning of a period and payoffs at the end of the period (all xs are random (stochastic) variables), then SDF is any random variable satisfying\n\nThe stochastic discount factor is sometimes referred to as the pricing kernel as, if the expectation is written as an integral, then can be interpreted as the kernel function in an integral transform. Other names sometimes used for the SDF are the \"marginal rate of substitution\" (the ratio of utility of states, when utility is separable and additive, though discounted by the risk-neutral rate), a \"change of measure\", \"state-price deflator\" or a \"state-price density\".\n\nProperties \nThe existence of an SDF is equivalent to the law of one price; similarly, the existence of a strictly positive SDF is equivalent to the absence of arbitrage opportunities (see Fundamental theorem of asset pricing). This being the case, then if is positive, by using to denote the return, we can rewrite the definition as \n\nand this implies \n\nAlso, if there is a portfolio made up of the assets, then the SDF satisfies\n\nBy a simple standard identity on covariances, we have\n\nSuppose there is a risk-free asset. Then implies . Substituting this into the last expression and rearranging gives the following formula for the risk premium of any asset or portfolio with return :\n\nThis shows that risk premiums are determined by covariances with any SDF.\n\nSee also\nHansen–Jagannathan bound\n\nReferences \n\nStochastic calculus\nFinancial economics\nMathematical finance" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it" ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	What did he get involved with next?	4	What did George Bernard Shaw get involved with after the SDF?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "\"Get Involved\" is a song by the American singer Ginuwine from his sixth studio album A Man's Thoughts (2009). The song was co-written by Missy Elliott and produced by Timbaland and featured guest vocals from the pair. Although the song was originally scheduled to be released in summer 2009 as the second single from the album, it was pushed back to 2010 as an international single from the album because of a dispute between Ginuwine and Timbaland.\n\nBackground\nIn 2007, when asked about who he would like to work with that would surprise people, Timbaland told Billboard, \"For personal reasons I'd like to work with Ginuwine.\" In November 2008, Ginuwine confirmed to the press that Timbaland would be featured on A Man's Thoughts.\n\nRelease and promotion\nThe song was first performed on 23 July 2009 on The Late Show with David Letterman. Ginuwine and Missy were the only performers from the song to appear; Timbaland was exempted. The song was officially released overseas as early as 29 January 2010. On 29 June 2010, a promotional CD release for the single was given a limited released in the United States. In 2011, a twelve-track E–single of the song was released in Spain. On 12 March 2012, the record label Smash The House released a digital three-track remix sampler exclusively via the online store Amazon.\n\nControversy\nAn initial dispute between Timbaland and Ginuwine dates back to October 2009, when Timbaland expressed disinterest in appearing in the \"Get Involved\" music video. In April 2010, Ginuwine told Vibe: \"He really hasn’t been interested in working with me, so I can’t speak on the present [...] The reason I'm pissed off at him now is because of what he did. I would've been cool and not bothered him if he would've said, 'Nah, I'm too busy,' or gave me the lame excuse like he's been giving me. But don't do it and then not do what you're supposed to do [to promote the song].\" Ginuwine later disclosed to the Atlanta radio station WAMJ that a settlement of over $50,000 was made for Timbaland to appear in the video. However, because of Timbaland's persistent disinterest, the single was shelved in the United States and was instead released overseas with an animated music video. In July 2011, Timbaland responded to Ginuwine's comments via BET.com, \"I know how he might feel. He might think that we abandoned him [...] We never would abandon him. He’s like a brother. But when you get everybody else, mix different managers... it changes every dynamic.\" Timbaland also added that he wanted to work with Ginuwine for the sake of their friendship and brotherhood. That same month, Ginuwine told MTV UK that he and Timbaland were cool and that they would converse at times via Twitter. He also added that a song with him, Missy and Timbaland would \"hopefully\" develop to show the \"magic\" they once had.\n\nFormats and track listings\n\n Australian iTunes single\n \"Get Involved\" (feat. Timbaland & Missy Elliott) — 3:37\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit) — 3:00\n \"Get Involved\" (Marcus Knight Down South Remix) — 4:11\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & d'Aambrogio Remix) — 7:56\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vanelii Remix) — 8:26\n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:16\n \"Get Involved\" (Rico Bernasconi Remix) — 5:34\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n\n European CD single\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit) — 3:00\n \"Get Involved\" — 3:38\n\n Finnish Promo CDS\n \"Get Involved\" (Original Edit) — 3:41 \n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Video Edit) — 3:45 \n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit Mix) — 3:03 \n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Floor Mix) — 4:00 \n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:19 \n \"Get Involved\" (Rico Bernasconi Remix) — 5:36 \n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vannelli Remix) — 8:28 \n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & D'Ambrogio Remix) — 7:58 \n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:31\n\n Italian 12\" vinyl\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vannelli Remix) — 8:26\n \"Get Involved\" (Original Version) — 3:37\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & D'Ambrogio Remix) — 7:58\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n\n Italian CD single\n \"Get Involved\" (Original Version) — 3:40\n \"Get Involved\" (A-Class Video Mix) — 3:45\n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:19\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vannelli Remix) — 8:28\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & D'Ambrogio Remix) — 7:58\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n\n Italian digital download\n \"Get Involved\" (Molella & Jerma Remix) — 6:32\n \"Get Involved\" (DJs from Mars Remix) — 5:57\n \"Get Involved\" (Paolo Aliberti & Francesco Andreoli) — 6:17\n \"Get Involved\" (Shorty Simosun Remix) — 7:12\n \"Get Involved\" (Mark & Shark Remix) — 4:39 \n \"Get Involved\" (Da Brozz Remix) — 4:36\n \"Get Involved\" (Andres Diamond Remix) — 5:37 \n \"Get Involved\" (Remakeit Remix) — 4:30\n\n Spanish E–single\n \"Get Involved\" (Kylian Mash Edit Re-Mix) — 3:14\n \"Get Involved\" — 3:38\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Floor Mix) — 3:43\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Video Mix) — 3:58\n \"Get Involved\" (Bernasconi & Farenthide Remix) — 5:16\n \"Get Involved\" (A Class Edit) — 3:00\n \"Get Involved\" (Dino Lenny & Taz Remix) — 6:13\n \"Get Involved\" (Jake & Cooper Mix) — 6:30\n \"Get Involved\" (Joe T Vanelii Remix) — 8:26\n \"Get Involved\" (Kylian Mash Extended Re-Mix) — 5:03\n \"Get Involved\" (N3sh & d'Aambrogio Remix) — 7:56\n \"Get Involved\" (Rico Bernasconi Remix) — 5:34\n\n UK Promo CDS\n \"Get Involved\" (Adam F & Herve's Stadium Kaos Vocal Remix)\n \"Get Involved\" (Adam F & Herve's Stadium Kaos Dub)\n\n US digital download\n \"Get Involved\" (Wolfpack Remix) — 5:15\n \"Get Involved\" (Yves V Remix) — 5:49\n \"Get Involved\" (Firebeatz Remix) — 6:35\n\nChart performance\n\"Get Involved\" was Ginuwine's first song in over six years to chart outside of the United States.\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2009 songs\n2010 singles\nGinuwine songs\nMissy Elliott songs\nTimbaland songs\nSong recordings produced by Timbaland\nSongs written by Missy Elliott\nSongs written by Jerome \"J-Roc\" Harmon\nSong recordings produced by Jerome \"J-Roc\" Harmon\nSongs written by Ezekiel Lewis\nSongs written by Ginuwine\nSongs written by Patrick \"J. Que\" Smith\nSongs written by Timbaland", "How Did This Get Made? is a comedy podcast on the Earwolf network hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas.\n\nGenerally, How Did This Get Made? is released every two weeks. During the show's off-week, a \".5\" episode is uploaded featuring Scheer announcing the next week's movie, as well as challenges for the fans. In addition to the shows and mini-shows, the How Did This Get Made? stream hosted the first three episodes of Bitch Sesh, the podcast of previous guests Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider, in December 2015. It has also hosted episodes of its own spin-off podcast, the How Did This Get Made? Origin Stories, in which Blake Harris interviews people involved with the films covered by the main show. In December 2017, an episode was recorded for the Pee Cast Blast event, and released exclusively on Stitcher Premium.\n\nEvery episode has featured Paul Scheer as the host of the podcast. The only episode to date in which Scheer hosted remotely was The Smurfs, in which he Skyped in. Raphael has taken extended breaks from the podcast for both filming commitments and maternity leave. Mantzoukas has also missed episodes due to work, but has also Skyped in for various episodes. On the occasions that neither Raphael nor Mantzoukas are available for live appearances, Scheer calls in previous fan-favorite guests for what is known as a How Did This Get Made? All-Stars episode.\n\nList of episodes\n\nMini episodes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n List of How Did This Get Made? episodes\n\nHow Did This Get Made\nHow Did This Get Made" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member" ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	How did he involve himself in it?	5	How did George Bernard Shaw involve himself in the Fabian Society?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	He joined the society's executive committee	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "The Involve Foundation (known as Involve) is a leading UK based think tank and charity working on public participation.\n\nBackground\n\nInvolve is based in Bethnal Green in Central London. Involve's Director is Sarah Castell and the Chair of Involve's Board of Trustees is Ed Cox. Involve was founded in 2004 by Richard Wilson to determine how new forms of public participation can strengthen democracy in Britain and elsewhere.\n\nActivities\n\nInvolve’s vision is of a democracy where people are at the heart of decision-making. \n\nInvolve has worked with a wide range of partners, most recently the Cabinet Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and NHS England. Past partners include the Home Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly, the OECD, the European Commission and the BBC.\n\nKey publications\n\n Room for a View: Democracy as a deliberative system, 2015\n Civic Activism Toolkit, 2015\n Public engagement, not just about the public, 2014\n Can you hear me? Citizens, Climate change & Open Local Government, 2014\n From Fairytale to Reality: Dispelling the myths around citizen engagement , 2013 \n Pathways through Participation: What creates and sustains active citizenship?, 2011\n Talking for a Change: A distributed dialogue approach to complex issues, 2010\n\nSee also\nList of think tanks in the United Kingdom\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nInvolve\n\nPolitical and economic think tanks based in the United Kingdom\nDeliberative groups", "William Noah Hedges (16 July 1856 – 21 November 1935) was an Australian politician. Born in Hertfordshire in England, he received a primary education before his migration to Australia in 1878, where he became a public works contractor. He moved to Western Australia in 1893, where he became a company director. In 1906, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the member for Fremantle, representing the Western Australian Party as its only representative (John Forrest was nominally the leader but in practice did not involve himself in the party). Hedges sat effectively as an independent until 1909, when he joined the newly formed Commonwealth Liberal Party. He held the seat until his defeat in 1913. In 1929, he was appointed President of the Western Australian Employers Federation; he remained in this position until his death in 1935.\n\nReferences\n\nCommonwealth Liberal Party members of the Parliament of Australia\nMembers of the Australian House of Representatives for Fremantle\nMembers of the Australian House of Representatives\n1856 births\n1935 deaths\nWestern Australian Party members of the Parliament of Australia\n20th-century Australian politicians" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee" ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	What did he do as a member of the committee?	6	What did George Bernard Shaw do as a member of the Fabian Society's executive committee?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	provided the society with its first manifesto,	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "Muhammad Islamuddin (born March 1894, date of death unknown) was an Indian politician, lawyer and the Member of Parliament. He represented Purnia parliament constituency in 1952 after elected to the first Lok Sabha in India's first general election. He also served as the member of Bihar Legislative Assembly from 1936 to 1952.\n\nHe was affiliated with the Indian National Congress and served as the member of District Board for Purnia from 1924 to 1946, member of the Kathar Dispensary Committee from 1927 to 1939. In 1930, he was appointed as the commissioner of Purnia Municipality and served until 1933.\n\nBiography \nHe was born to Mojibuddin Ahmed in March 1894 in Bengal Province what is now known as Purnia district, India. He had fourteen children, including twelve sons and two daughters.\n\nHe did his schooling from the Rajshahi Collegiate School, did his B.A from the City College, Calcutta and later obtained his law degree from the Department of Law, University of Calcutta.\n\nHe served at multiple posts throughout his life such as member of Purnia Hospital Committee from 1933 to 1942 and also member of Managing Committees besides being a member of Purnea Zilla School, 1938 to 1941. In 1935, he was appointed as the member of Purnia Girls' H. E. School until 1941, member of Barsoe H. E. School from 1938 to 1939, and Abadpur H. E. School in 1939. Later in 1937, he served as president of Lakshmipur H. E. School from 1937 to 1943 and member of Regional Transport Authority for North Bihar from 1945 to 1949.\n\nHe also served as a member of Medical Standing Committee from 1948 to 1951. In 1927, he served at Patna University Senate until 1951 and vice-chairman of Sadar Local Board for Purnia from 1927 to 1930. He also served vice-chairman of Purnia District Board twice from 1933 to 1939 and 1945 to 1946. In 1930, he was appointed as a secretary of Anjaman Islamia until 1936 and a member of All India Congress Committee in 1938.\n\nReferences \n\n \n1894 births\nYear of death missing\nCity College, Kolkata alumni\nIndian National Congress politicians from Bihar\nLok Sabha members from Bihar\nMembers of the Bihar Legislative Assembly\nPeople from Purnia", "Sheila Curran Harrington (born September 8, 1960) is an American politician and attorney, serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the 1st Middlesex district. She is a member of the Republican party.\n\nHer district includes the towns of Groton, Dunstable, Pepperell, Townsend, Ashby and a precinct in Ayer and Devens.\nShe serves as Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee and as a member of both the Committee on Rules and the House Committee on Personnel and Administration. She previously served as the Ranking Member on the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee and as a Member of the Veterans and Federal Affairs Committee. She is currently serving her sixth term, since 2011.\n\nEarly life and education\nSheila Harrington was born in Salem, Massachusetts and grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts. She attended high school in Peabody at Bishop Fenwick High School She then attended Providence College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work in 1982. Following college, she attended the New England School of Law and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1986.\n\nCareer\nSheila has been a practicing attorney in Massachusetts for over 30 years. She continues to have a law practice in Groton, Massachusetts along with two other attorneys.\n\nOne of Harrington's most notable positions is her stance on Transgender rights. In an op-ed from the Lowell Sun she wrote, how after \"passionately protesting a bill on the Massachusetts House Floor\", she came to realize, that was wrong in her own mind.\n\nSaying, \"As a member of the Legislature, and a member of the Judiciary Committee, it has been my job to attend hearings and to listen, understand, look at the facts, and refuse to give in to fear or vague speculation as to what could happen. I examined this debate with a more open and honest heart and mind during the hearings that followed my speech six years ago. I listened to law enforcement who offered their professional advice that transgender protections lead to virtually no increase in public safety incidents. I listened to parents who told heartbreaking stories of the hardships their transgender children had faced. I listened to transgender men and women who have faced harassment simply for being who they are. I tried to put myself in their shoes.\n\nI also listened to opponents. However, they did not testify from personal experience or data. Their opposition was overwhelmingly based upon speculation as to the issues we might encounter if this bill passes. Their opposition was rooted in what could happen, not what has happened. Their opposition stemmed from myths, stereotypes, and misconceptions about who transgender people are and what this law would do. Now, we have seen in the past year that their speculation was wrong. This law has only made Massachusetts a stronger, more welcoming place for all.\n\nI have been well aware of the arguments made against transgender rights, because I once made them myself. But I also know now that they are wrong.\n\nMany people have said that they could not support the transgender bill because of their faith. I have been raised as in the Roman Catholic faith all my life. I went to 16 years of Catholic school, including four years at Providence College. I do not purport to be a religious scholar or an expert on the Bible, but there are a few things that I have certainly taken from my faith. I believe God told us to “Love one another as I have loved you!” and he didn’t add, 'unless they are transgender.' Nor did he say, 'Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me … unless they are transgender.' I now support transgender protections fully because of my faith, not in spite of it!\"\n\n\"Transgender equality is not about a new or special privilege. It is about preventing discrimination, plain and simple. We must have the courage to do what we believe is right. I was wrong six years ago. I’m proud to have done my part last year to make Massachusetts a better, more equal, fairer state for everyone, and I will vote in 2018 to continue treating transgender people fairly and equally.\"\n\nElectoral history\n\nSee also\n 2019–2020 Massachusetts legislature\n 2021–2022 Massachusetts legislature\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nProvidence College alumni\nNew England Law Boston alumni\nMembers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives\nMassachusetts Republicans\nWomen state legislators in Massachusetts\n21st-century American politicians\n21st-century American women politicians\nPoliticians from Salem, Massachusetts\nPeople from Danvers, Massachusetts\nPeople from Groton, Massachusetts\nBishop Fenwick High School (Peabody, Massachusetts) alumni\n1960 births" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee", "What did he do as a member of the committee?", "provided the society with its first manifesto," ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	is there information about the manifesto?	7	is there information about the Fabian Society's first manifesto?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	published as Fabian Tract No. 2.	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "Communicate knowledge manifesto is a manifesto that was created by a Dutch design student from ArtEZ in 2010. In 1972 there was a debate between Wim Crouwel and Jan van Toorn about the purpose of graphic design. This debate is still relevant in today's graphic design, what is its purpose? \nCommunicate knowledge manifesto is based on the assumption that the graphic designer should be focused on spreading knowledge as much as possible. Not his/her own knowledge, but the knowledge of others. To improve the interaction between disciplines.\n\nThis first started as a small project, but other students from academia over the Netherlands soon joined in this manifesto. A number of groups have formed making this manifesto a reality. \nAt this point, research groups have formed with Radboud University Nijmegen, Eindhoven University of Technology and the Jan Van Eyck Academie where graphic designers take part in the interaction between multiple disciplines and universities to create the best environment for communicating knowledge.\n\nThe Royal Academy and the University of the Arts London have started similar projects also stated under the communicate knowledge manifesto.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Grafisch Arnhem\n\nGraphic design", "Feminist Manifesto was written in 1914 by English-born Modernist writer Mina Loy (December 27, 1882 – September 25, 1966), but not published until 1982 by The Last Lunar Baedeker. The text inspires a call to action for women to critique the feminist movement in the 20th century, while designing an agenda to secure women's identity within the changing spheres of society. This action is attained by casting out traditional roles and demolishing the distinction between the two sexes. The manifesto is dependent on political and rational involvement.\n\nHistorical and Literary Context \nLoy wrote Feminist Manifesto in 1914, while living in an expatriate community in Florence, Italy. The Great War was underway, and lasted from 1914 until 1918, resulting in a huge disruption in social and economic values. Women were required to enter the workforce as a substitution for the men who were away at war. As the war came to an end, Parliament voted in favor of the Representation of the People Act. This law made it possible for women in England to vote for the first time, although it contained stipulations concerning those who were able to maintain social standing. In response to the changing spheres, Loy wrote Feminist Manifesto.\n\nThe manifesto begins with a direct call on women: The feminist movement as at present instituted is Inadequate. Women if you want to realize yourselves—you are on the eve of a devastating psychological upheaval—all your pet illusions must be unmasked—the lies of centuries have got to go—are you prepared for the Wrench—? There is no half-measure—NO scratching on the surface of the rubbish heap of tradition, will bring about Reform, the only method is Absolute Demolition. Cease to place your confidence in economic legislation, vice-crusades & uniform education—you are glossing over Reality. Professional & commercial careers are opening up for you—Is that all you want?\n\nImpact on Feminism and Manifestos\n\nLegacy in Feminist Theory \nFeminist manifestos like Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto have borrowed some of the ideas employed in Feminist Manifesto, such as the argument that men have run the world disruptively and need to be stopped.\n\nManifesto Theory \nThe Modernist Manifesto is considered to be a public declaration of artistic convictions. This particular manifesto employs this characteristic by utilizing a more expressive form concerning word choice and sentence placement. Its form and language reflect a stance of autonomy and individuality using intense language for the purpose of getting readers invested. The manifesto originated from the idea to make works public. This same idea was practical in conveying a particular medium in which the audience was not specified, but intrigued by the intense tone and information presented through text. In the Modernist manifesto, hostile rhetoric became an essential tool to the material previously written.\n\nReception and Criticism \n\nFeminist Manifesto has been one of the many templates used concerning women's issues since its unpublished release. Scholars such as Susan Gilmore and Cristanne Miller argue that the text itself is a reflection of Loy's personal experience.\n\n\"Susan Gilmore, for instance, defines impersonality as a masculinist striving for “invisibility” through the “transcendence” of the “emotion[al]” and the “personal,” and uses “Feminist Manifesto” to categorize Loy’s project as a contrary aesthetic that “foregrounds the female poet’s visibility” and an “authority borne not of cultural transcendence but of cultural disenfranchisement.”'\n\n\"'Similarly, Cristanne Miller, also citing the manifesto and aligning impersonality with the negation of the personal, contends that Loy “eschew[s] even apparent lyric impersonality” by “maintain[ing] strong illocutionary and suggestively autobiographical elements” in her poetry.'\"\n\nFurther reading\n\nReferences \n\nManifestos\nFeminist works" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee", "What did he do as a member of the committee?", "provided the society with its first manifesto,", "is there information about the manifesto?", "published as Fabian Tract No. 2." ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	When did he come to believe in Marxism?	8	When did George Bernard Shaw come to believe in Marxism?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx,	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, first published in 1983 and again in 2000 is a book written by the scholar Cedric Robinson. Influenced by many African American and Black economists and radical thinkers of the 19th century, Robinson creates a historical-critical analysis of Marxism and the Eurocentric tradition from which it evolved. The book does not build from nor reiterate Marxist thought, but rather introduces racial analysis to the Marxist tradition.\n\nSynopsis \nBlack Marxism is separated into three parts, the first being, “The Emergence and Limitations of European Radicalism;” the second, “The Roots of Black Radicalism;” and the third, “Black Radicalism and Marxist Theory.” Through these sections, Robinson critiques Marxism and its reliance on determinism. The primary theories which result from Black Marxism are racial capitalism and the Black radical tradition.\n\nThe book begins by introducing the theory of racial capitalism, the process of deriving social and economic value from the racial identity of another person. Robinson develops this term to correct what he thinks led Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to mistakenly believe that European bourgeois society would rationalize social relations. Robinson says that “As a material force… racialism would inevitably permeate the social structures emergent from capitalism. I have used the term ‘racial capitalism’ to refer ... to the subsequent structure as a historical agency.” He argues that all capitalism is structured by ‘racialism’ and produces inequalities among groups. Thus, all capitalism should be recognized as racial capitalism.\n\nIn addition to theorizing on racial capitalism, Black Marxism aims to elucidate the Black radical tradition of the past, present, and future. Robinson recounts several acts of resistance, from seventeenth-century maroon communities in the Americas to twentieth-century national liberation struggles, looking to scholars W. E. B. Du Bois and C. L. R. James to exemplify the tradition.\n\nPublication \nBlack Marxism was first published in 1983 by Zed Books. It was republished in 2000 by the University of North Carolina Press. Robin D. G. Kelley provides an introduction to the 2000 publication of Black Marxism. Black Marxism’s second publishing ushered in both praise and critique from within the American political left.\n\nLegacy \nSeveral writers have demonstrated and written about Black Marxism’s relevance for twenty-first-century issues.\n\nThe Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement grounds its structural analysis of Black oppression in racial capitalism. Specifically, the organization Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) names racial capitalism in its 2020 policy platform, “A Vision for Black Lives.” Scholars find it noteworthy that BLM continues to reach back to Black Marxism, suggesting that the book's theories have great significance for black radical movements of the past and present. Moreover, contemporary radical scholars champion Black Marxism for the extent to which it argues the link between contemporary anti-Black violence and historical structures of oppression.\n\nThe publication of Black Marxism has directed the agenda of Africana studies as well as influenced the definition of radicalism in Black scholarship. The Black radical tradition provides a rich resource for future challenges of Africana studies and it acts as a bridge, helping academics to “understand the conceptual vocabulary used by ... activist-intellectuals who research and teach about the relationship between race and class … [and] to identify the concepts needed to transform the conditions under which the radical tradition now operates.\"\n\nReferences \n\nBooks about Marxism\nAfrican-American leftism\nMarxism", "Search for a Method or The Problem of Method () is a 1957 essay by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in which the author attempts to reconcile Marxism with existentialism. The first version of the essay was published in the Polish journal Twórczość; an adapted version appeared later that year in Les Temps modernes, and later served as an introduction for Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason (Paris, 1960). Sartre argues that existentialism and Marxism are compatible, even complementary, even though Marxism's materialism and determinism might seem to contradict the abstraction and radical freedom of existentialism.\n\nSummary\n\nMarxism and Existentialism\nSartre's opening chapter discusses the relationship between Marxism and existentialism. Sartre sees Marxism as the dominant philosophy for the current era of history and existentialism as a reinforcing complement. Most of the chapter discusses how existentialism fails to stand on its own as a school of thought while Marxism has become corrupted by the Soviets and other orthodox Communists who abuse the system of thought. Sartre sees existentialism as a reaction to this abuse.\n\nSartre opens his first chapter by defining philosophy. He argues that there are many philosophies and that a current, active philosophy unifies all current knowledge and represents the \"rising\" class becoming conscious of itself. Sartre breaks modern philosophy down into three eras: mercantile John Locke and René Descartes, industrial Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and contemporary Karl Marx. Sartre classifies existentialism as an ideology instead of a philosophy since it failed to establish itself as an independent system of thought and did not establish itself as the conscious of a new class. Early existentialism, represented by Søren Kierkegaard, did not stand on its own as a unified system of thought. Instead, Kierkegaard's work stood only as the opposition to Hegel's. The existence of Kierkegaard's thought depended on the existence of Hegel's since it is solely a reaction to it. Karl Jaspers also failed to establish existentialism in a place of historical importance since his theories are directed inward, toward the self instead of outward, to society.\n\nSartre then turns to his own experience with Marx. He describes an early attraction to Marx's thought since it did a better job of describing the condition of the proletariat than the \"optimistic humanism\" that was being taught at university. Despite this affinity toward Marx's works, Sartre claims that his generation's interpretation of Marxism remained tainted by idealism and individualism until World War II broke down the dominant societal structures. Despite this apparent victory of Marxism, existentialism persisted because Marxism stagnated. Marxism became a tool for the security and policies of the Soviet Union. The Soviets halted the organic conflict and debate that develops a philosophy, and turned Marxist materialism into an idealism in which reality was made to conform to the a priori, ideological beliefs of Soviet bureaucrats. Sartre points to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 where Soviet leaders assumed that any revolt must be counter-revolutionary and anti-Marxist when, in fact, the Hungarian revolt came directly from the working class. In contrast to this inflexible mode of thinking, Sartre points to Marx's writings on the Revolutions of 1848 and the French coup d'état of 1851 in which Marx examined class relations instead of taking them as given. Sartre notes that his contemporary Marxists maintained a focus on \"analysis\" but criticizes this analysis as a superficial study focused on verifying Marxist absolutes (\"eternal knowledge\") instead of gaining an understanding of historical perspective, as Marx himself did.\n\nSartre turns his criticism on to other methods of investigation. He says that \"American Sociology\" has too much \"theoretic uncertainty\" while the once promising psychoanalysis has stagnated. Unlike these methods and the generally dominant idealism, existentialism and Marxism offer a possible means of understanding mankind and the world as a totality. Sartre claims that the class war predicted by Marxism has failed to occur because orthodox Marxism has become too rigid and \"Scholastic\". Despite its stagnation, Marxism remains the philosophy of this time. Both existentialism and Marxism see the world in dialectical terms where individual facts are meaningless; truth is found not in facts themselves but in their interaction: they only gain significance as part of a totality. György Lukács argued that existentialism and Marxist materialism could not be compatible, Sartre responds with a passage from Engels showing that it is the dialectic resulting from economic conditions that drives history just as in Sartre's dialectically driven existentialism. Sartre concludes the chapter by citing Marx from Das Kapital: \"The reign of freedom does not begin in fact until the time when the work imposed by necessity and external finality shall cease...\" Sartre, following Marx, sees human freedom limited by economic scarcity. For Sartre, Marxism will remain the only possible philosophy until scarcity is overcome; moreover, he sees even conceiving of a successor theory—or what one might look like—as impossible until the scarcity problem is overcome.\n\nThe Problem of Mediations and Auxiliary Disciplines\nSartre opens the chapter by asking \"Why, then, are we not simply Marxists?\". Marxism provides guiding principles and problems, but not knowledge. Contemporary Marxists regard Marxist theory as a source of actual knowledge, but Sartre sees it only as a set of problems in search of a method. As in the first chapter, Sartre sees Marxism's flaw in rigidity: an \"a priori\" theory that forces events into \"prefabricated molds.\" Sartre again turns to Lukács, his foil. He ascribes to Lukács the opinion that the realization of German existentialism was Nazism while French existentialism can be dismissed as a petits bourgeois reaction to the German occupation. Sartre rejects Lukács' view by pointing out that, while Heidegger embraced the Nazis, Jaspers did not. Sartre also began work on his philosophy in 1930 and was wrapping up his work by the time of the occupation. He argues that, as a Marxist, Lukács is incapable of understanding Heidegger and existentialism. Marxism takes events and constructs universals, then imposes those universals on subsequent events. Existentialism does not assume a single, real totality, but sees history as an interactive relationship between events and humans.\n\nSartre turns to the example of the French Revolution. While Marxists have argued that the complicated events of the Revolution can be broken down into class conflict, Sartre says the Revolution cannot be understood only on the terms of Marxist class analysis. He proposes a process of \"mediations\" to analyze how ideological and social factors guide the course of history, which is only indirectly influenced by economics and class.\n\nProgressive-Regressive method\nSartre proposes a method of thought that combines historical materialism with existentialist psychoanalysis.\n\nReception\nIn the introduction to her translation of Search for a Method, the philosopher Hazel Barnes compares Sartre's views of Marx and Marxism to those of Erich Fromm, as expressed in Marx's Concept of Man (1961). The philosopher Walter Kaufmann argues that Sartre's embrace of Marxism represents the end of existentialism, since following the publication of Search for a Method, neither Sartre nor any other major thinker writes as an existentialist (though Kaufmann adds that existentialism understood in a looser sense continues).\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n Chapter 1 of Search for a Method: Marxism & Existentialism\n Chapter 2 of Search for a Method: The Problem of Mediations & Auxiliary Disciplines\n \"Existentialism\" by Georg Lukács (referred to by Sartre as \"Existentialism or Marxism\"\n\n1957 essays\nBooks about Marxism\nBooks by Jean-Paul Sartre\nÉditions Gallimard books\nFrench non-fiction books\nPhilosophy essays\nWorks originally published in literary magazines\nWorks originally published in Polish magazines" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee", "What did he do as a member of the committee?", "provided the society with its first manifesto,", "is there information about the manifesto?", "published as Fabian Tract No. 2.", "When did he come to believe in Marxism?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx," ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	what was his attitude on socialism?	9	what was George Bernard Shaw's attitude on socialism?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties.	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "William Dwight Porter Bliss (1856–1926) was an American Episcopal priest and one of the most famous and influential Christian socialists at the turn of 20th century. As a devout churchman, organizer, public speaker and an editor of numerous publications for over 40 years, Bliss became a central figure for the entire Christian socialist movement.\n\nEarly life\n\nWilliam Dwight Porter Bliss was born in Constantinople, Turkey, on August 20, 1856, the son of Edwin Elisha Bliss and Isabella Holmes (Porter) Bliss, who were Christian missionaries there. He was educated at Phillips Academy, Andover, Amherst College, and the Hartford Theological Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut.\n\nReligious and social influences\nHartford Theological Seminary was where Bliss first learned about religion in relation to social problems. The most notable influencers during his time of theological study being Henry George and articles in the Christian Union. His immediate work after seminary also greatly impacted the trajectory of his future career as a socialist preacher who engaged in activism. Following his graduation from Hartford Theological Seminary in 1882, Bliss was ordained a Congregationalist minister where he was forced to deal with, first hand, the serious labor problems that faced working-class people in America. After witnessing the effects that working unbearably long hours had on family life, the limited amount of food, and the harsh conditions working-class people faced in Boston, Bliss was convinced that the church had a direct duty to improve such terrible conditions. According to Bliss, every person was a part of the kingdom of God regardless of religion and therefore should be treated as such.\n\nDuring this same time, Bliss also become interested in the writings of people such as Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice, Edward Bellamy, the English Christian socialist, and most notably George E. McNeil. While all these writers were important to Bliss's foundational understanding of Christianity's role in social and economic life, it was George E. McNeil who had the greatest impact. According to Bliss “McNeil was the one man living from whom in spirit as well as economic wisdom he had learned the most”.\n\nThese thinkers along with Bliss's experiences helping working-class folk eventually led him to christian socialism, a movement which sought to apply socialism principles to the teachings of Christ in order to address modern social difficulties, caused, by industrialization and urbanization.\n\nHis radical views on Christianity eventually pushed him to leave Congregationalism to join the Episcopal Church on October 25, 1885. On June 16, 1886, he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church, and became a priest on June 8, 1887. He then served at Grace Church in Boston from 1887 until 1890, and finally, he helped organize an inner-city ministry, the Church of the Carpenter, where he served for four years.\n\nBliss’s thoughts on Christian Socialism \nOnce Bliss adopted the ideas of Christian Socialism he began to create a very clear distinct understanding of what it meant. While Bliss recognized that the label Christian Socialism on its surface seemed to be a paradox, he believed that \"christianity and socialism were not only compatible, but that socialism was the natural economic expression of christian life.\" He sought to rid socialism of its philosophical materialism because he believed Christianity was the most effective way to bring socialism to fruition in America. As Bliss mentioned in a speech, his socialist radicalism was grounded not in Marx but in the teachings of Jesus Christ more than anything else. Despite this understanding of Christianity, Bliss originally believed that Christians did not necessarily have to pick a particular political party or organization in order to be genuine socialist. He did argue, however, that if Christians were to truly live according to the Gospel and the words of Jesus, they would intuitively advocate for a socialist society in America. Moreover, the socialist aspect of Christian Socialism for Bliss was not hampered by the word Christian preceding it. He defined socialism as “that mode of social life which, based upon the recognition of the natural brotherhood and unity of mankind would have land and capital owned by the community collectively, and operated cooperatively for the good of all. He was not interested in merely implementing more state intervention or cooperatives. He, like the scientific socialist, believed that in order to create a just society, where the children of God were all treated with dignity and respect, it would require a complete overhaul of the economic system. Reform was merely a halfway measure for Bliss. Therefore for Bliss, Christian socialism was a fundamentally socialist ideology rooted in Christian principles. He hated the idea that people who tried to apply Christianity to social problems would even try to apply the label Christian Socialism to their work.\n\nScholarly dispute \nBliss’s understanding of Christian Socialism and its fit with “genuine political socialism” is a point of contention, however, for many radical Marxist historians. Although his ideas were distinctively separate from and more radical than the popular social gospel thinkers who merely wanted progressive reform, many scholars still do not want to label Bliss's ideology to be socialist because it lacked real radicalism. Despite condemning capitalism as a dangerous plutocracy founded on economic individualism and his demands for an entirely new political economic order, many historians still find Bliss to be too moderate for socialist standards because of his wiliness to work with progressive reform centered institutions. These scholars argue that Bliss and other Christian socialists of the day offered watered-down versions of socialism due to their practical goals, respect for unions and the insentience on gradualism. Bliss's willingness to work with the Knights of labor, the populist and other less radical political affiliations push critics to assert that Bliss was not only comfortable with simply achieving small piecemeal reform but that he thought this was the most effective way to achieve a socialist society.\n\nThere has been some push back on the idea that Bliss was too moderate to be classified within the socialist movement of the Gilded Age. Richard Dressner, in particular, argues that scholars who have labeled Bliss as a moderate have limited the scope of their analysis to the first few decades of his work and have not considered the entire trajectory of his work as a preacher and activist. Most notably, his years with the Christian Socialist Fellowship. According to Dressner, not only was Bliss pushing socialist principles from the pulpit, he was also trying to destigmatize the anti-religious nature of the socialist party itself. During his time with the Fellowship, Bliss along with many of the other Christian socialists moved away from their gradualist perspective and pushed for more immediate political change by writing approvingly not just of workers demanding improved conditions, but of labor strikes that became violent in order to achieve their radical ends. Furthermore, once elected to the executive committee of the Christian Socialist Fellowship, Bliss approved of the fellowship's full endorsement of the socialist party and even advocated Christians to vote the socialist party ticket. Dresser argues that to suggest that Bliss was merely lukewarm to socialism is to not understand the complexity of Bliss. Although early on he frequently worked with moderate progressive reformers, as the times and circumstances changed, Bliss saw his view of Christian socialism directly in line with even the most radical socialist of the day.\n\nPolitical career\nBliss had a lengthy and diverse political career while serving as a minister in the Episcopal church.\n\nFor one his first political projects, Bliss helped found the American branch of the leftist-leaning Christian Social Union to condemn capitalism and push Christianity to take on a socialist agenda (1884 to 1887).\n\nBliss also served as member of the Knights of Labor, beginning in 1886, advocating more moderate reform he believed would be a necessary foundation in order to achieve his socialist vision for America.\n\nIn 1887 Bliss ran for Lieutenant Governorship of Massachusetts as a candidate of the Labor Party, but lost the election. Shortly after his political campaign for lieutenant Governor, Bliss founded the Society of Christian Socialists (SCS) in 1889. During that same time he also helped to create a Christian socialist newspaper called The Dawn, which he later bought in 1891 in order to bring a more socialist message to the paper. Much like his more general philosophy in regards to Christian Socialism, the goal of these projects were to the show that “the aim of socialism is embraced in the aim of christianity” and that the” teachings of Jesus Christ lead directly to some specific form of socialism”.\n\nDuring these years Bliss also edited and compiled many publications, including the Encyclopedia of Social Reform beginning in 1897. This was the definitive reference work on social movements published during the Progressive Era. Not only did it describe social movements, The Encyclopedia of Social Reform further articulated Bliss's belief that the church and organized religion were viable vehicles of social and economic revolution in America.\n\nFollowing his time with the Society of Christian Socialists and The Dawn, Bliss took on a job as an investigator for the Bureau of Labor from 1907 to 1909 to highlight and eventually improve working conditions for laborers.\n\nBliss and the Christian Socialist Fellowship \nBliss played an integral role within the Christian Socialist Fellowship. As the Fellowship convention, Bliss was elected to the Committee on Constitution, and his entire speech was included in the Christian Socialist Report of the conference. \n\nAfter 1910 he accepted a position within the Committee on Literature to write a series of Sunday school lessons through a socialist lens. That same year he also became one of the contributing editors to the newspaper of the fellowship called the Christian Socialist and eventually was elected as the General Treasurer of the fellowship in 1911.\n\nFinal public service years \nIn 1914, Bliss traveled to Switzerland to work with the YMCA, and served as a pastor and YMCA worker in that country until 1921. During the First World War, Bliss ministered to French and Belgian soldiers interned in Switzerland.\n\nDeath and legacy\n\nAfter the war, Bliss returned to the United States and preached in New York City until his death in that city on October 8, 1926. \n\nWilliam Dwight Porter Blissis honored with a Lesser Feast together with Richard Theodore Ely on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America on October 8.\n\nWorks\n \n \n The Communism of John Ruskin. Editor. Boston. 1891.\n \n \n \n \"What Is Socialism?\" Roslindale, Massachusetts: The Dawn. 1894. .\n \n \n \n\n What to Do: A Programme of Christian Socialism. San Francisco: Rembaugh. [1890s].\n A Plea for the Union of the Reform Forces with the Democratic Party. New York: Commercial Printing House. .\n \n The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform. Edited with Binder, Rudolph Michael; Gaston, Edward Page. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1908.\n\nSee also\n William Reed Huntington\n\nReferences\n\nFootnotes\n\nBibliography\n\nFurther reading\n\n \n \n\n1856 births\n1926 deaths\n19th-century American Episcopalians\n19th-century Anglican priests\n19th-century Congregationalist ministers\n20th-century American Episcopalians\n20th-century Anglican priests\nAmerican Christian socialists\nAmerican Congregationalist ministers\nAmerican Episcopal priests\nAmerican Labor Party politicians\nAmherst College alumni\nAnglican saints\nAnglican socialists\nConverts to Anglicanism from Congregationalism\nHartford Seminary alumni\nPhillips Academy alumni\nWriters from Boston\n20th-century American clergy\n19th-century American clergy", "Ali Yata was a Moroccan communist leader. He was born in Tangier on 25 August 1920. Yata took part in the foundation of the Moroccan Communist Party (PCM) in 1943. After a few years he became the general secretary of the party, replacing the founding general secretary Léon Sultan who died in 1945.\n\nIn 1960 PCM was banned. Yata then founded the Party of Liberation and Socialism, which was banned in 1969. In 1974 he founded the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS). He became increasingly moderate, and supported the claims of the Moroccan government on Western Sahara. After the fall of the Socialist Bloc, his party distanced itself from communism.\n\nAli Yata died on 12 August 1997, aged 76. He was replaced by Ismaïl Alaoui as the leader of PPS.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nObituary in l'Humanité\nPhoto of Yata with Mao Zedong\n\n1920 births\n1997 deaths\nYata Ali\nParty of Progress and Socialism politicians\nMoroccan Communist Party politicians" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee", "What did he do as a member of the committee?", "provided the society with its first manifesto,", "is there information about the manifesto?", "published as Fabian Tract No. 2.", "When did he come to believe in Marxism?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx,", "what was his attitude on socialism?", "he largely accepted the principle of \"permeation\" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties." ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?	10	Are there any other interesting aspects about the article on George Bernard Shaw's political awakenings, besides his interest in Marxism?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13,	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	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" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee", "What did he do as a member of the committee?", "provided the society with its first manifesto,", "is there information about the manifesto?", "published as Fabian Tract No. 2.", "When did he come to believe in Marxism?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx,", "what was his attitude on socialism?", "he largely accepted the principle of \"permeation\" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties.", "Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?", "In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13," ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	What was it about?	11	What was the 1890 Tract No.13 about?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms.	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	true	[ "\"What About Us\" is a single released by British-Irish girl group the Saturdays. Their first international single, it is the lead single from their first American-only release EP, Chasing the Saturdays (2013). It also acts as the second single from their fourth studio album Living for the Weekend (2013). The single was first released in the United States and Canada on 18 December 2012 via digital download, before being released in the United Kingdom on 16 March 2013 via CD single and digital download. The single was written by Camille Purcell, Ollie Jacobs, Philip Jacobs. There are two different versions of the track which have been recorded and released: a solo version, which was released exclusively in the US and Canada, and a version featuring Jamaican rapper Sean Paul, which was released internationally. Music critics gave the song positive feedback, but questioned the heavily auto-tuned chorus and the move away from the group's traditional sound.\n\nA music video was released for the song was published and released via the Saturdays' Vevo account on 11 January 2013. The video was filmed in Los Angeles, where the band were filming their US reality series, Chasing the Saturdays, which is broadcast through E!. An acoustic version of \"Somebody Else's Life\", which can be heard on the opening titles of the show, was released as a B-side. The Saturdays went on to a promotional tour in order to get the song \"out there\" in the United States, and appeared on a number of different chat shows including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Jeff Probst Show, Fashion Police, Chelsea Lately and The Today Show in New York City. They later went on to a promotional tour in the UK, visiting radio stations around the country.\n\n\"What About Us\" gained commercial success, debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart to become the Saturdays' twelfth UK top 10 single and first ever number-one. In Ireland, the song debuted at number six on the Irish Singles Chart, gaining the group their fifth top 10 single there. With first-week sales of 114,000 copies and 40,000 copies more sold than their closest competitor to number one, \"What About Us\" was the fastest-selling single of 2013 in the UK until it was overtaken by Naughty Boy's \"La La La\" two months later. In December 2013, it was announced as the eleventh fastest-selling single of the year overall. As of August 2014, the song has sold over 400,000 copies in the UK. On 23 December 2013, Mollie King posted a photo on Instagram of her holding a 500,000 sales plaque from their record label, with the message that \"What About Us\" had sold over 500,000 copies in UK and USA, with 120,000 copies in the US alone even without charting on the Billboard Hot 100.\n\nBackground \n\nIn 2012, it was announced that the Saturdays had received an offer to star in their own reality television programme, Chasing the Saturdays, broadcast through E! Network. While filming their show, the band began visiting the recording studio, where they began work with Rodney \"Darkchild\" Jerkins.\n\nThe Saturdays felt comfortable with their US labels, and thanked them for not only giving them a chance in North America, but for making them feel at ease and welcome which took a lot of \"weight of our shoulders\". The band said they have always respected the labels due to the massive success they've had with artists. The band had been working with Demi Lovato in the recording studio.\n\nComposition\n\n\"What About Us\" was written and produced by Ollie Jacobs and acts as the Saturdays first single to be released in North America where it could appear on the Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100. In America its release coincided with their TV show, Chasing the Saturdays. The track is the band's fourteenth single to be released in the United Kingdom and Ireland and the track is a dance-pop song. Before the release of the song, Mollie King said that the band were excited to share the track as they had the song \"for months\" She said: \"I can't wait for everyone to hear it and to get to perform it. I'm just so excited about this one, I think it's going down really well.\" The band said they didn't want to change their type of music just for the American public and would stick to their roots and the genre they enjoyed to perform. King spoke: \"We've always made a point that we don't want to change to go to America. We wanted to go over as we are and if they like us, they like us and if they don't, they don't!\" King said that the track is reggae pop music, a little different from what band usually record, but the track is still really \"dancey\" and \"upbeat\", as well a good song to dance to on either stage or at a club. When Una Healy was asked what the song was about she said that she \"did not know\" what the song was exactly about. \"To be honest I was trying to figure out the other day what exactly it's about. I could bullshit away telling you, but I really don't know. But I think it's all about someone driving you crazy.\" She said she \"thinks\" that 'What About Us' part means \"me and you getting together\". She did point out that she did know that the song was about \"making you happy\" and that the track was good for the summer and will get you on the dancefloor. The band teased saying that \"What About Us\" is a pop track, and that is a good indication of what the expect from the album, and that they've paired up with Diane Warren to record a few ballads and not just pop tracks. \"What About Us\" is the only collaboration on the album.\n\nRelease\n\"What About Us\" was confirmed as the Saturdays' first single to be released in North America, and would be released on 18 December 2012 to coincide with their American reality show, Chasing the Saturdays. It was also revealed that the track would be released as the lead single from the band's North America released only Extended play, Chasing the Saturdays, which was named after the show. Some critics said that releasing \"What About Us\" from an EP for the US market was a \"wise decision\". One critic said: For, throwing out a traditional release on the back of a show that isn't (yet) a hit would ultimately be setting them up for failure. What's more, the EP allows their \"storyline\" for the next season of the show (should there be one) to revolve around recording an album. In the United Kingdom, it was revealed that \"What About Us\" would be the follow-up single from \"30 Days\" in the UK and Ireland, and therefore would not be the lead single from the band's fourth studio album. The band announced that before the release of the album, there would be another single release from the album. The follow-up single was revealed to be titled \"Gentleman\".\n\nJust like all the band's previous singles, the record was accepted by all A-Lists at radio stations. The UK and Ireland version of the track features a guest rap from Sean Paul. Whereas the North American version does not feature vocals from Sean Paul and only vocals from the band. The original version of the track last 3 minutes and 24 seconds, whereas the version which features Sean Paul lasts 3 minutes and 40 seconds. The single was released with B-side, an Acoustic version of a brand new track, \"Somebody Else's Life\", which is the opening theme to Chasing the Saturdays. \"What About Us\" was released as a digital download EP, and this featured the single version which features Sean Paul, the solo version and the B-side track. Upon the release in North America, there was a digital remixes EP which featured remixes of \"What About Us\" by a number of DJs including: Seamus Haji, Guy Scheiman, the Buzz Junkies and 2nd Adventure and this was also made available to purchase on 18 December 2012. While in the UK, the CD single was made available to be from stores from 18 March 2013. On the CD single featured \"What About Us\", the B-side \"Somebody Else's Life\".\n\nThe band decided to release \"What About Us\" differently between the United Kingdom and the United States, \"What About Us\" was released onto the charts without any airplay and without a music video accompanying the release, something the band experienced in the UK, with \"Notorious\". Whereas in the UK, \"What About Us\" was released with airplay and the music video being released before the release of the single. During this time, Frankie Sandford became ambassadors for mental health after Sandford battled depression. The band said they choose \"What About Us\" to be the lead single in the US and follow-up single from \"30 Days\" because they all loved it once they demoed it and it gave them a \"really good feeling\" They also said it is a fresh start for a new album, with a \"reggae vibe\", but still a pop record. The Saturdays said that Sean Paul was \"perfect\" for the UK version of the song. They said that he was \"just so nice\" and that he would be present during some of the promotional performances when the single was released.\n\nCritical reception\nRobert Copsey of Digital Spy said that Rochelle Humes asks in a \"curious Jamaican-flecked timbre\" during the intro of \"What About Us\". During the lyrics \"Oh why are we are waiting so long I'm suffocating\", and he went on to say that it is in reference to \"man-related drama\" and also pointing out that there is plenty of that on their reality series, Chasing the Saturdays. Copsey later went on to tip the band for their first number-one single as he said: \"but we suspect it could also be a sly wink at their enduring quest for a number one single\". He said that track was \"radio-friendly\" due to the \"trace beats\" and \"demanding their contrary lover to give up the hard-to-get schtick sharpish\". Although he didn't think that the song was \"original\" enough for the band, but is \"strangely addictive\" and he would be happy to see the song at the top of the charts.\n\n4Music described the song as a \"electro-pop affair with a bucket-load of synths thrown in for good measure. It's quite good, but we wonder if they should reconsider this single choice if they truly want to launch an invasion on America's charts.\" Idolator wrote a mixed review criticizing the track for lacking the group's signature style; \"While the beat is pounding enough to nab the girls a chart hit, it doesn’t feel true to the spirit of The Sats. Then again, maybe it isn’t supposed to.\" Jessica Sager from PopCrush also touched on the departure from their original sound; \"It’s a pretty big departure from their usual sugary oeuvre, but not necessarily in a bad way.\" She went on to praise Sean Paul's feature; \"His presence on the track gives it an air of authenticity and fun, but pretty much only during his own verses and interjections.\" However, she criticised the mediocre attempt at dialect the groups sing in throughout the track; \"When the Saturdays try to emulate island tones, it sounds a little awkward and they start out like that right off the bat, but go in and out of the undistinguished dialect throughout the song.\" She also felt that the heavily Auto-Tuned chorus was not need; \"The Auto-Tune seems extraneous, because the Saturdays can actually sing well without it.\" She end the review by labeling their latest effort as \"generic\" and \"not the best the Saturdays have to offer\", also rating it two and a half stars out of five.\n\nCommercial reception\n\"What About Us\" debuted at number 44 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart for the week dated 8 December 2012. This marks their first ever chart entry in the United States and it has since peaked at number twenty-seven. The song debuted at number 79 on the Canadian Hot 100, becoming the highest Canadian debut for a new artist in 2013.\n\nThe Saturdays admitted that they did not want to get their hopes up on debuting at number one on the UK Singles Charts due to being beaten to number-one three times before with \"Forever Is Over\", \"Just Can't Get Enough\" and \"Missing You\", after being number one on the Official Chart Update. During the latter two occasions, it was rapper Flo Rida who had pushed them back to numbers two and three respectively. It was revealed that the Saturdays had knocked Justin Timberlake's \"Mirrors\" off the number-one spot on the UK Singles Chart. This became the band's first ever number-one single in the United Kingdom, it also became Sean Paul's second number one in the United Kingdom after being featured on \"Breathe\" in 2003. For every one copy that Timberlake's \"Mirrors\" sold, the Saturdays sold two more copies of \"What About Us\". \"What About Us\" sold 114,000 copies in the first week of release, making it, at the time, the fastest selling single of 2013. The track sold 40,000 copies more than Timberlake, who was pushed back to number-two on the UK Singles Charts. The band said they were thrilled to be the UK's number-one with \"What About Us\". They went on to thanking their fans for supporting the single and supporting them for the past five years.\n\n\"What About Us\" debuted at number six on the Irish Singles Chart, marking the band's fifth top ten single in that country. \"What About Us\" made its debut at number thirty-six on the New Zealand Singles Chart.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"What About Us\" was filmed during the summer of 2012 in Los Angeles, while the Saturdays were filming their reality television series. The North American version of the video was released via the Saturdays' official Vevo account on YouTube on 11 January 2013. A variant of the video, featuring vocals and additional scenes of the women with Sean Paul, was later released on 5 February 2013.\n\nLive performances and promotion\nThe Saturdays appeared in a number of nightclubs throughout 2012 in the United States performing \"What About Us\" along other hits. On 14 January 2013, the group made their first televised performance of the single on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It was their first performance done on American television. On 16 January, the girls performed \"What About Us\" on The Today Show in New York City. Along with the performances, they appeared on chat shows such as Chelsea Lately, Daybreak, Fashion Police, Lorraine, The Jeff Probst Show, Loose Women, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Sunday Brunch and What's Cooking? to promote the single.\n\nTrack listings\nUS digital download\n\"What About Us\" - 3:24\n\nCD Single - UK Version Only\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 3:40\n\"What About Us\" - 3:24\n\"Somebody Else's Life\" (Acoustic) - 3:18\n\nUS Digital remixes EP\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Radio Edit) - 3:06\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Club Mix) - 6:35\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Dub) - 6:49\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Radio Edit) - 3:59\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Club Mix) - 7:35\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Dub) - 7:20\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Radio Edit) - 3:23\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Club Mix) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Radio Edit) - 4:24\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Club Mix) - 6:36\n\nEurope and Oceania EP - digital download\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 3:40\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [The Buzz Junkies Radio Edit] - 3:23\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [Seamus Haji Radio Edit] - 3:37\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Radio Edit) - 3:58\n\"What About Us\" (Extended Mix) - 3:49 (only available through pre-order)\n\nUK Digital Remixes EP\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Club Mix) - 7:35\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Club Mix) - 6:36\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Club Mix) - 6:35\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Club Mix) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Radio Edit) - 4:24\n\nRevamped Version\n\"What About Us\" - 3:24\n\"Somebody Else's Life\" (Acoustic) - 3:18\n\"What About Us\" (Extended Mix) - 3:49\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Radio Edit) - 4:24\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Radio Edit) - 3:58\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [The Buzz Junkies Radio Edit] - 3:23\n\"What About Us\" (featuring Sean Paul) [Seamus Haji Radio Edit] - 3:37\n\"What About Us\" (2nd Adventure Club Mix) - 6:36\n\"What About Us\" (Guy Scheiman Club Mix) - 7:35\n\"What About Us\" (The Buzz Junkies Club Mix) - 4:32\n\"What About Us\" (Seamus Haji Club Mix) - 6:35\n\nCredits and personnel\n\"What About Us\" was recorded at Rollover Studios in London.\n\nOllie Jacobs a.k.a. Art Bastian ~ Songwriter, Producer, Vocal Producer, Mix Engineer\n\nPhillip Jacobs ~ co-writer\nCamille Purcell ~ co-writer\nThe Saturdays ~ vocals\nSean Paul ~ guest vocalist\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease and radio history\n\nSee also\n\nList of UK Singles Chart number ones of the 2010s\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n feat. Sean Paul\n\nThe Saturdays songs\nSean Paul songs\n2012 singles\nDance-pop songs\nNumber-one singles in Scotland\nUK Singles Chart number-one singles\nSongs written by Camille Purcell\n2012 songs\nFascination Records singles\nSongs written by Ollie Jacobs", "No Turning Back: The Story So Far is the first compilation album by Shannon Noll. The album includes tracks from Noll's three studio albums to date, That's What I'm Talking About (2004), Lift (2005) and Turn It Up (2008) and five brand new tracks. The album was released in September 2008 and peaked at number 7 on the ARIA Charts, becoming Noll's fourth consecutive top ten album.\n\nUpon released, Noll said \"It was only once we started talking about the idea that it sank in how many singles there's been, from \"What About Me\" right through to \"Loud\" and \"In Pieces\". All these songs mean so much to me and showcase a journey that I've been through with my songwriting and recording, my career in general. It's great to have the new songs on the album, as they are just a taste of what we've got planned for next year!\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single taken from the album was \"Summertime\", which was originally by 2007 Canadian Idol Brian Melo. The track peaked at number 54 on the ARIA Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Summertime\" – 3:42\n\"Shine\" – 3:34\n\"Lift\" – 3:56\n\"Lonely\" – 4:42\n\"Now I Run\" – 3:44\n\"What About Me\" – 3:21\n\"Drive\" – 3:58\n\"Learn to Fly\" – 4:09\n\"Don't Give Up\" (with Natalie Bassingthwaighte) – 4:40\n\"Loud\" – 3:10\n\"In Pieces\" – 3:32\n\"Tomorrow\" – 3:57\n\"No Turning Back\" – 3:43\n\"Crash\" – 3:21\n\"You're Never Alone\" – 5:01\n\"Sorry Is Just Too Late\" (featuring Kari Kimmel) (iTunes exclusive bonus track) – 3:54\n\nDisc 2 (DVD edition)\n\"What About Me\"\n\"Drive\"\n\"Learn to Fly\"\n\"Lonely\"\n\"Shine\"\n\"Lift\"\n\"Now I Run\"\n\"Loud\"\n\"In Pieces\"\n\"Don't Give Up\" (with Natalie Bassingthwaighte)\n\nOmissions\nThe compilation omits the following singles:\n \"Rise Up\" with Australian Idol Top 12 (2003) – was a collaborative single and is not considered part of Noll's official discography.\n \"New Beginning\" (2004) – was a radio-only single release from That's What I'm Talking About.\n \"C'mon Aussie C'mon\" (2004) – was a charity single only.\n \"Twelve Days of Christmas\" with Dreamtime Christmas All-Stars (2004) – was a collaborative single and is not considered part of Noll's official discography.\n \"Everybody Needs a Little Help\" (2008) – was a radio-only single release from Turn It Up.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nShannon Noll albums\nSony BMG albums\n2008 greatest hits albums\nCompilation albums by Australian artists" ]
[ "George Bernard Shaw", "Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society", "What were Shaw's first political activities?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF),", "Was he an active member?", "I don't know.", "Is there any additional information about his time with the SDF?", "Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it", "What did he get involved with next?", "Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member", "How did he involve himself in it?", "He joined the society's executive committee", "What did he do as a member of the committee?", "provided the society with its first manifesto,", "is there information about the manifesto?", "published as Fabian Tract No. 2.", "When did he come to believe in Marxism?", "He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx,", "what was his attitude on socialism?", "he largely accepted the principle of \"permeation\" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties.", "Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?", "In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13,", "What was it about?", "a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms." ]	C_94f53935a4914694b1221a4853592c6c_0	How well was it received by the Society?	12	How well was Tract No. 13 received by the Fabian Society?	George Bernard Shaw	On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it--he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886-87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Life Early years Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw (1814–1885) and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw (née Gurly; 1830–1913). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances (1853–1920) and Elinor Agnes (1855–1876). The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, a flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862, Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill, overlooking Killiney Bay. Shaw, a sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as a schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped the "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873, Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in the house by teaching himself to play the piano. London Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington, but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet. Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879), was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80, and as in Dublin achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian. He grew a beard to hide a facial scar left by smallpox. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among the Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner. In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb, a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame, written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In the same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. Political awakening: Marxism, socialism, Fabian Society On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, addressed by the political economist Henry George. Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty, which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx, and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital. He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman, whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading a tract, Why Are The Many Poor?, issued by the recently formed Fabian Society, Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant, a fine orator. From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education." This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism, as advocated by Charlotte Wilson, Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After a rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ("Bloody Sunday"), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout the 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is, a revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". Novelist and critic The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist, begun and finished in 1883. The latter was published as a serial in ToDay magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886 he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in the contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin, and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake, and insisted that all great art must be didactic. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under the pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World, where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on the subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review, edited by his friend Frank Harris. As at The World, he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". Playwright and politician: 1890s After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer, written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock-Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W.S.Gilbert's style. The public took a different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr, with whom Shaw had a romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida, which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon. In the 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. He was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation, and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole, in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel excoriated the government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule, a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" (parish councillor) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in a house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden. The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine, "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire; they renamed the house "Shaw's Corner", and lived there for the rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. Stage success: 1900–1914 During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island, a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII, who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in the Irish Literary Revival, including George Russell and James Joyce, and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey, who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island. Man and Superman, completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play, a comedy about suffragettes, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet, ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion, written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Fabian years: 1900–1913 In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule, to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although a nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee—precursor of the modern Labour Party. By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in the London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells, who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with the society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman, which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp, who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. First World War After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War, which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused the instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem, written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. O'Flaherty V.C., satirising the government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit, a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Ireland Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave the Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to the partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State. Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins, then head of the Free State's Provisional Government. Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later, the Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. 1920s Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak House, written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times: "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought the play brilliant but ponderously acted, except for Edith Evans as Lady Utterword. Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselah, written in 1918–20 and staged in 1922. Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'". This cycle of five interrelated plays depicts evolution, and the effects of longevity, from the Garden of Eden to the year 31,920 AD. Critics found the five plays strikingly uneven in quality and invention. The original run was brief, and the work has been revived infrequently. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch". He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In 1920 Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote Saint Joan in the middle months of 1923, and the play was premiered on Broadway in December. It was enthusiastically received there, and at its London premiere the following March. In Weintraub's phrase, "even the Nobel prize committee could no longer ignore Shaw after Saint Joan". The citation for the literature prize for 1925 praised his work as "... marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty". He accepted the award, but rejected the monetary prize that went with it, on the grounds that "My readers and my audiences provide me with more than sufficient money for my needs". After Saint Joan, it was five years before Shaw wrote a play. From 1924, he spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. The book was published in 1928 and sold well. At the end of the decade Shaw produced his final Fabian tract, a commentary on the League of Nations. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World". Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cart, written in late 1928. It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. The premiere was in Warsaw in June 1928, and the first British production was two months later, at Sir Barry Jackson's inaugural Malvern Festival. The other eminent creative artist most closely associated with the festival was Sir Edward Elgar, with whom Shaw enjoyed a deep friendship and mutual regard. He described The Apple Cart to Elgar as "a scandalous Aristophanic burlesque of democratic politics, with a brief but shocking sex interlude". During the 1920s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods. In 1922 he had welcomed Mussolini's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". Shaw was prepared to tolerate certain dictatorial excesses; Weintraub in his ODNB biographical sketch comments that Shaw's "flirtation with authoritarian inter-war regimes" took a long time to fade, and Beatrice Webb thought he was "obsessed" about Mussolini. 1930s Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early 1920s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe". Having turned down several chances to visit, in 1931 he joined a party led by Nancy Astor. The carefully managed trip culminated in a lengthy meeting with Stalin, whom Shaw later described as "a Georgian gentleman" with no malice in him. At a dinner given in his honour, Shaw told the gathering: "I have seen all the 'terrors' and I was terribly pleased by them". In March 1933 Shaw was a co-signatory to a letter in The Manchester Guardian protesting at the continuing misrepresentation of Soviet achievements: "No lie is too fantastic, no slander is too stale ... for employment by the more reckless elements of the British press." Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler". His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb. Shaw's first play of the decade was Too True to be Good, written in 1931 and premiered in Boston in February 1932. The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of The New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it. During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. Shaw met an enthusiastic welcome in South Africa in 1932, despite his strong remarks about the racial divisions of the country. In December 1932 the couple embarked on a round-the-world cruise. In March 1933 they arrived at San Francisco, to begin Shaw's first visit to the US. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself... illiberal, superstitious, crude, violent, anarchic and arbitrary". He visited Hollywood, with which he was unimpressed, and New York, where he lectured to a capacity audience in the Metropolitan Opera House. Harried by the intrusive attentions of the press, Shaw was glad when his ship sailed from New York harbour. New Zealand, which he and Charlotte visited the following year, struck him as "the best country I've been in"; he urged its people to be more confident and loosen their dependence on trade with Britain. He used the weeks at sea to complete two plays—The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles and The Six of Calais—and begin work on a third, The Millionairess. Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan. The latter was never made, but Shaw entrusted the rights to the former to the unknown Gabriel Pascal, who produced it at Pinewood Studios in 1938. Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do with the film, but was powerless to prevent it from winning one Academy Award ("Oscar"); he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. He became the first person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. In a 1993 study of the Oscars, Anthony Holden observes that Pygmalion was soon spoken of as having "lifted movie-making from illiteracy to literacy". Shaw's final plays of the 1930s were Cymbeline Refinished (1936), Geneva (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939). The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable. In particular, Shaw's parody of Hitler as "Herr Battler" was considered mild, almost sympathetic. The third play, an historical conversation piece first seen at Malvern, ran briefly in London in May 1940. James Agate commented that the play contained nothing to which even the most conservative audiences could take exception, and though it was long and lacking in dramatic action only "witless and idle" theatregoers would object. After their first runs none of the three plays were seen again in the West End during Shaw's lifetime. Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of bone, and he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians. Second World War and final years Although Shaw's works since The Apple Cart had been received without great enthusiasm, his earlier plays were revived in the West End throughout the Second World War, starring such actors as Edith Evans, John Gielgud, Deborah Kerr and Robert Donat. In 1944 nine Shaw plays were staged in London, including Arms and the Man with Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Margaret Leighton in the leading roles. Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The revival in his popularity did not tempt Shaw to write a new play, and he concentrated on prolific journalism. A second Shaw film produced by Pascal, Major Barbara (1941), was less successful both artistically and commercially than Pygmalion, partly because of Pascal's insistence on directing, to which he was unsuited. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 and the rapid conquest of Poland, Shaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference. Nevertheless, when he became convinced that a negotiated peace was impossible, he publicly urged the neutral United States to join the fight. The London blitz of 1940–41 led the Shaws, both in their mid-eighties, to live full-time at Ayot St Lawrence. Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. In 1943, the worst of the London bombing over, the Shaws moved back to Whitehall Court, where medical help for Charlotte was more easily arranged. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's What, was published in 1944. Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative ... that repeats ideas he had given better elsewhere and then repeats itself". The book sold well—85,000 copies by the end of the year. After Hitler's suicide in May 1945, Shaw approved of the formal condolences offered by the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, at the German embassy in Dublin. Shaw disapproved of the postwar trials of the defeated German leaders, as an act of self-righteousness: "We are all potential criminals". Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema". The film was poorly received by British critics, although American reviews were friendlier. Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. de Mille". In 1946, the year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. In the same year the British government asked Shaw informally whether he would accept the Order of Merit. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history. 1946 saw the publication, as The Crime of Imprisonment, of the preface Shaw had written 20 years previously to a study of prison conditions. It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billions (1947), his final full-length work; Farfetched Fables (1948) a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shav (1949), a ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; and Why She Would Not (1950), which Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday. During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of ninety-four of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 6 November 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Works Plays Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works. He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly one-act pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Early works Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Widowers' Houses (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's New Women—a recurring feature of later plays. The Philanderer (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson. In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society. Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". Arms and the Man (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism. The central theme of Candida (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a Christian Socialist and a poetic idealist. The third of the Pleasant group, You Never Can Tell (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular. The "Three Plays for Puritans"—comprising The Devil's Disciple (1896), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s. The three are set, respectively, in 1770s America, Ancient Egypt, and 1890s Morocco. The Gadfly, an adaptation of the popular novel by Ethel Voynich, was unfinished and unperformed. The Man of Destiny (1895) is a short curtain raiser about Napoleon. 1900–1909 Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. The Admirable Bashville (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel Cashel Byron's Profession, focuses on the imperial relationship between Britain and Africa. John Bull's Other Island (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years. Major Barbara (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy. With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood, he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the anti-hero. Getting Married (1908) and Misalliance (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation. Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction (1905) to the satirical Press Cuttings (1909). 1910–1919 In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. Fanny's First Play (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play. Androcles and the Lion (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice. Pygmalion (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character. Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is Heartbreak House (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster. Shaw named Shakespeare (King Lear) and Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard) as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on Congreve (The Way of the World) and Ibsen (The Master Builder). The short plays range from genial historical drama in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Great Catherine (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in Overruled; three satirical works about the war (The Inca of Perusalem, O'Flaherty V.C. and Augustus Does His Bit, 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (The Music Cure, 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (Annajanska, 1917). 1920–1950 Saint Joan (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles. The Apple Cart (1929) was Shaw's last popular success. He gave both that play and its successor, Too True to Be Good (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous." Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with On the Rocks (1933) and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement. The Millionairess (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva. As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them." Music and drama reviews Music Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages. It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of The Star and The World in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'". He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of Brahms and those British composers such as Stanford and Parry whom he saw as Brahmsian. He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of Handel oratorios with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists". He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak. Drama In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "melodrama, sentimentality, stereotypes and worn-out conventions". As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Review, in which he assessed more than 212 productions. He championed Ibsen's plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book Quintessence of Ibsenism remained a classic throughout the twentieth century. Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated Oscar Wilde above the rest: "... our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw's collected criticisms were published as Our Theatres in the Nineties in 1932. Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear"). Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; Duff Cooper observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain." Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "Bardolaters", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions. He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Cymbeline Refinished and Shakes versus Shav. In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors." Political and social writings Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of Common Sense About the War in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, More Common Sense About the War. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished. The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms. Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A New York Times report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". As late as the Second World War, in Everybody's Political What's What, Shaw blamed the Allies' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country". These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible". "Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbook (1903), an appendix to Man and Superman, and developed them further during the 1920s in Back to Methuselah. A 1946 Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". By 1933, in the preface to On the Rocks, he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it"; critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony. In an article in the American magazine Liberty in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated". Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste. Otherwise, Life magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses". Fiction Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. Immaturity (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield" according to Weintraub. The Irrational Knot (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories". Shaw was pleased with his third novel, Love Among the Artists (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors. Cashel Byron's Profession (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, Mrs Warren's Profession. Shaw later explained that he had intended An Unsocial Socialist as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. Gareth Griffith, in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion. The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors. Letters and diaries Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988. Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more. Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes. Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend Edward McNulty; his theatrical colleagues (and amitiés amoureuses) Mrs Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry; writers including Lord Alfred Douglas, H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer Gene Tunney; the nun Laurentia McLachlan; and the art expert Sydney Cockerell. In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to The Times was published. Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary. Miscellaneous and autobiographical Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisection, vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism. Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939) Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in 1904 is an example—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce Shaw Gives Himself Away, a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as Sixteen Self Sketches (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography. Beliefs and opinions Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity". In one area at least Shaw was constant: in his lifelong refusal to follow normal English forms of spelling and punctuation. He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". In his will, Shaw ordered that, after some specified legacies, his remaining assets were to form a trust to pay for fundamental reform of the English alphabet into a phonetic version of forty letters. Though Shaw's intentions were clear, his drafting was flawed, and the courts initially ruled the intended trust void. A later out-of-court agreement provided a sum of £8,300 for spelling reform; the bulk of his fortune went to the residuary legatees—the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the National Gallery of Ireland. Most of the £8,300 went on a special phonetic edition of Androcles and the Lion in the Shavian alphabet, published in 1962 to a largely indifferent reception. Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah. By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. In 1913 Shaw declared that he was not religious "in the sectarian sense", aligning himself with Jesus as "a person of no religion". In the preface (1915) to Androcles and the Lion, Shaw asks "Why not give Christianity a chance?" contending that Britain's social order resulted from the continuing choice of Barabbas over Christ. In a broadcast just before the Second World War, Shaw invoked the Sermon on the Mount, "a very moving exhortation, and it gives you one first-rate tip, which is to do good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you". In his will, Shaw stated that his "religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution". He requested that no one should imply that he accepted the beliefs of any specific religious organisation, and that no memorial to him should "take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice". Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Despite his expressed wish to be fair to Hitler, he called anti-Semitism "the hatred of the lazy, ignorant fat-headed Gentile for the pertinacious Jew who, schooled by adversity to use his brains to the utmost, outdoes him in business". In The Jewish Chronicle he wrote in 1932, "In every country you can find rabid people who have a phobia against Jews, Jesuits, Armenians, Negroes, Freemasons, Irishmen, or simply foreigners as such. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies." In 1903 Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox. He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Less contentiously, Shaw was keenly interested in transport; Laurence observed in 1992 a need for a published study of Shaw's interest in "bicycling, motorbikes, automobiles, and planes, climaxing in his joining the Interplanetary Society in his nineties". Shaw published articles on travel, took photographs of his journeys, and submitted notes to the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.B.S.—as a by-line, and often signed himself "G.Bernard Shaw". He left instructions in his will that his executor (the Public Trustee) was to license publication of his works only under the name Bernard Shaw. Shaw scholars including Ervine, Judith Evans, Holroyd, Laurence and Weintraub, and many publishers have respected Shaw's preference, although the Cambridge University Press was among the exceptions with its 1988 Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Legacy and influence Theatrical Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition ... the proponent of the theater of ideas" who struck a death-blow to 19th-century melodrama. According to Laurence, Shaw pioneered "intelligent" theatre, in which the audience was required to think, thereby paving the way for the new breeds of twentieth-century playwrights from Galsworthy to Pinter. Crawford lists numerous playwrights whose work owes something to that of Shaw. Among those active in Shaw's lifetime he includes Noël Coward, who based his early comedy The Young Idea on You Never Can Tell and continued to draw on the older man's works in later plays. T. S. Eliot, by no means an admirer of Shaw, admitted that the epilogue of Murder in the Cathedral, in which Becket's slayers explain their actions to the audience, might have been influenced by Saint Joan. The critic Eric Bentley comments that Eliot's later play The Confidential Clerk "had all the earmarks of Shavianism ... without the merits of the real Bernard Shaw". Among more recent British dramatists, Crawford marks Tom Stoppard as "the most Shavian of contemporary playwrights"; Shaw's "serious farce" is continued in the works of Stoppard's contemporaries Alan Ayckbourn, Henry Livings and Peter Nichols. Shaw's influence crossed the Atlantic at an early stage. Bernard Dukore notes that he was successful as a dramatist in America ten years before achieving comparable success in Britain. Among many American writers professing a direct debt to Shaw, Eugene O'Neill became an admirer at the age of seventeen, after reading The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Other Shaw-influenced American playwrights mentioned by Dukore are Elmer Rice, for whom Shaw "opened doors, turned on lights, and expanded horizons"; William Saroyan, who empathised with Shaw as "the embattled individualist against the philistines"; and S. N. Behrman, who was inspired to write for the theatre after attending a performance of Caesar and Cleopatra: "I thought it would be agreeable to write plays like that". Assessing Shaw's reputation in a 1976 critical study, T. F. Evans described Shaw as unchallenged in his lifetime and since as the leading English-language dramatist of the (twentieth) century, and as a master of prose style. The following year, in a contrary assessment, the playwright John Osborne castigated The Guardians theatre critic Michael Billington for referring to Shaw as "the greatest British dramatist since Shakespeare". Osborne responded that Shaw "is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public". Despite this hostility, Crawford sees the influence of Shaw in some of Osborne's plays, and concludes that though the latter's work is neither imitative nor derivative, these affinities are sufficient to classify Osborne as an inheritor of Shaw. In a 1983 study, R. J. Kaufmann suggests that Shaw was a key forerunner—"godfather, if not actually finicky paterfamilias"—of the Theatre of the Absurd. Two further aspects of Shaw's theatrical legacy are noted by Crawford: his opposition to stage censorship, which was finally ended in 1968, and his efforts which extended over many years to establish a National Theatre. Shaw's short 1910 play The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare pleads with Queen Elizabeth I for the endowment of a state theatre, was part of this campaign. Writing in The New Statesman in 2012 Daniel Janes commented that Shaw's reputation had declined by the time of his 150th anniversary in 2006 but had recovered considerably. In Janes's view, the many current revivals of Shaw's major works showed the playwright's "almost unlimited relevance to our times". In the same year, Mark Lawson wrote in The Guardian that Shaw's moral concerns engaged present-day audiences, and made him—like his model, Ibsen—one of the most popular playwrights in contemporary British theatre. The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It produces plays by or written during the lifetime of Shaw as well as some contemporary works. The Gingold Theatrical Group, founded in 2006, presents works by Shaw and others in New York City that feature the humanitarian ideals that his work promoted. It became the first theatre group to present all of Shaw's stage work through its monthly concert series Project Shaw. General In the 1940s the author Harold Nicolson advised the National Trust not to accept the bequest of Shaw's Corner, predicting that Shaw would be totally forgotten within fifty years. In the event, Shaw's broad cultural legacy, embodied in the widely used term "Shavian", has endured and is nurtured by Shaw Societies in various parts of the world. The original society was founded in London in 1941 and survives; it organises meetings and events, and publishes a regular bulletin The Shavian. The Shaw Society of America began in June 1950; it foundered in the 1970s but its journal, adopted by Penn State University Press, continued to be published as Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies until 2004. A second American organisation, founded in 1951 as "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: Arms and the Man was the basis of The Chocolate Soldier in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and Pygmalion was adapted in 1956 as My Fair Lady with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Although he had a high regard for Elgar, Shaw turned down the composer's request for an opera libretto, but played a major part in persuading the BBC to commission Elgar's Third Symphony, and was the dedicatee of The Severn Suite (1930). The substance of Shaw's political legacy is uncertain. In 1921 Shaw's erstwhile collaborator William Archer, in a letter to the playwright, wrote: "I doubt if there is any case of a man so widely read, heard, seen, and known as yourself, who has produced so little effect on his generation." Margaret Cole, who considered Shaw the greatest writer of his age, professed never to have understood him. She thought he worked "immensely hard" at politics, but essentially, she surmises, it was for fun—"the fun of a brilliant artist". After Shaw's death, Pearson wrote: "No one since the time of Tom Paine has had so definite an influence on the social and political life of his time and country as Bernard Shaw." In its obituary tribute to Shaw, The Times Literary Supplement concluded: Notes References Citations Sources Books Shaw's writings Journals Newspapers Online External links (About 50 ebooks of Shaw's works and some additional Shaw-related material) (More links to Shaw-related material) (19 downloads for audiobooks) Shaw at IBDb.com (Information on Broadway productions, 1894 to present) (Lists all film and TV versions of Shaw's works since 1921) Shaw photographs held at LSE Library International Shaw Society The Shaw Society, UK, established in 1941 The Bernard Shaw Society, New York Shaw collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin 1856 births 1950 deaths 19th-century British dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 19th-century male writers 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in England Anti-vivisectionists Articles containing video clips Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners British eugenicists British male dramatists and playwrights British music critics British Nobel laureates British screenwriters British socialists Burials at Ayot St Lawrence Classical music critics Deaths from kidney failure English-language spelling reform advocates Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature PEN International Irish anti-vaccination activists Irish Dominion League Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish music critics Irish Nobel laureates Irish people of English descent Irish screenwriters Irish socialists Members of St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Fabian Society Writers from Dublin (city) Nobel laureates in Literature People associated with the British Museum People associated with the London School of Economics People associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art People educated at Wesley College, Dublin People from Ayot St Lawrence People from Portobello, Dublin Victorian novelists 20th-century British screenwriters	false	[ "The Family among the Australian Aborigines: A Sociological Study is a 1913 anthropological book by the Polish scholar Bronisław Malinowski.\n\nThe book was based on materials Malinowski collected and wrote in the years 1909-1911. It was well received not just by contemporary reviewers, but also by scholars generations later. In 1963, in his foreword to its new edition, John Arundel Barnes called it an epochal work, and noted how it discredited the previously held theory that Australian Aborigines have no institution of family.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n The book at the Internet Archive\n\n1913 non-fiction books\nAnthropology books\nBooks about families\nBooks about Australia\nIndigenous Australian society\nWorks by Bronisław Malinowski", "Fountain Inn is a 1939 mystery detective novel by the British writer Victor Canning. Canning had made his name with his comedy novels featuring Mr. Finchley. This was his first attempt at a thriller, but after the war he increasingly switched to writing thrillers. It received positive reviews with The Guardian noting \"Fountain Inn, which is extremely well written, is the attractive kind of detective story in which the main interest is not “Who?” but “How?”\". The first edition was by Hodder and Stoughton, but there was a reissue in 1974 by Heinemann, and it was republished in 2019 by Farrago Books.\n\nSynopsis\nThe plot revolves around the Fountain Inn building, part of the Inns of Chancery complex near Holborn, where several businesses are based including the husband and wife detective agency run by Helen and Ben Brown. The Browns are hired to investigate another organisation in the building, the Society for Progressive Rehabilitation, which has recently received a large bequest under possibly dubious circumstances. The Brown's own secretary Grace has connections with the Society, and due to information she has overheard, is kidnapped.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n Reilly, John M. Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers. Springer, 2015.\n\nExternal links \n Full bibliography by John Higgins\n The Victor Canning Pages\n\n1939 British novels\nBritish mystery novels\nNovels set in London\nBritish detective novels\nNovels by Victor Canning\nHodder & Stoughton books" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems" ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?	1	WHAT KIND OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE DID Cat Power HAVE?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	false	[ "Sergeant Lacey was a military interrogator at the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.\nOnly her rank and last name have been made public.\n\nLacey was named in FBI reports to the Department of Defense, alleging that she had been observed inflicting abuse on her interrogation subjects.\n\nCNN reports that Thomas Harrington, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI wrote a follow-up letter to Major General Donald Ryder, while he was conducting an investigation into allegations of detainee abuse.\n\nCNN reported that Harrington recorded:\n\nCNN reported that Harrington recorded that when the FBI agent asked the Marine what had happened during the time Lacey had his view blocked:\n\nHarrington's memo highlighted four examples of abuse. Three of these incidents occurred while Geoffrey Miller had overall authority over the detainees. All of those alleged to have committed the abuse have moved on to other assignments\n\nLieutenant Colonel Gerard Healy told CNN, on December 8, 2004, that Sergeant Lacey's conduct was under investigation.\nThe Department of Defense assured the public that the results of investigations into these incidents would be made public, once they were completed. As of February 18, 2007, no results have been made public.\n\nIn his 2007 book, Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power, Joseph Margulies wrote that the ACLU had been given unredacted version of the memo that spelled out Lacey's full name. He concluded that, while the kind of abuse Lacey dished out was rarely described to the public, it was in fact extremely common.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nFemale United States Marine Corps personnel\n21st-century American women", "Linda Meyer Williams (born c. 1949) is an American sociologist and criminologist. She is Senior Research Scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women and Director of the Justice and Gender-Based Violence Research Initiative. She is also Professor Emerita of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on child maltreatment, research methods, and gender, race and crime. Williams has researched in the field of psychology on topics including child abuse, family violence and violence against women, and trauma and memory (including recovered memory).\n\nBiography\nWilliams received her B.A. (1971) from Beaver College (now Arcadia University), and her M.A. (1972) and Ph.D. (1979) in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied at the Center for Research in Criminology and Criminal Law.\n\nIn the 1980s Williams spent time in Bermuda, working on prison reform and social justice issues while teaching courses in criminology and sociology. From 1996 to 2005 Williams was Director of Research at the Stone Center at Wellesley College, working in the areas of child sexual abuse, rape, sex offenders, fatal child abuse, and memory of childhood trauma. Williams conducted longitudinal studies in some of these areas. In 2005 she was appointed Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.\n\nThe August 2007 issue of SAGE Journal of Child Maltreatment was co-edited by Williams and Veronica Herrera.\n\nContributions\nWilliams is notable in the field of Memory for her longitudinal studies in the area of violence against women and childhood sexual abuse. A study that has received particular interest is \"Recall of childhood trauma: A prospective study of women's memories of child sexual abuse,\" published in 1994. It has currently been cited 441 times which is considered many in the field of Psychology.\n\nDuring the 1970s, Williams collected data from 206 girls between the ages of 0 and 12 who were admitted to the hospital emergency room because of sexual abuse. They were examined and these records as well as interviews with the child and parents were documented in the hospital medical records. In the early 1990s, Williams interviewed 136 of these women in what they believed was a follow-up of study associated with the hospital they were admitted to. They were not reminded of the sexual abuse record, however, some women associated the interview with their history of sexual abuse. Of the 136 interviewed, 129 were included in the analysis.\n\nThe results showed that 38% of the women failed to report the abuse that was documented in the hospital medical records. It was deemed unlikely that they simply did not want to discuss personal matters as 68% of this group reported other incidents of sexual abuse from their childhood. The conclusion was that many women who have been sexually abused as children appeared to have forgotten the abuse. This has major implications on childhood amnesia and repressed memories.\nA more detailed inspection of the results reveals that only 15 of the women (12%) reported they were never abused in childhood. It was suggested that 12% is an underestimation because the sample was only from reported abuse and not total numbers of sexually abused. Furthermore, because the abuse was reported the women may have been less likely to have forgotten the abuse compared to women whose abuse was never reported.\n\nThis final conclusion spurred a reply from Loftus, Garry, and Feldman (1994) titled \"Forgetting sexual trauma: What does it mean when 38% forget?\" and has been a point of discussion in regard to traumatic memories and repression.\n\nAchievements and awards\nWilliams has been President for the Board of The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.\n\nSelected bibliography\n\nBooks\n \n \n Preview.\n Preview.\n Preview.\n\nJournal articles\n\nNotes\n\nAmerican criminologists\nWomen criminologists\nArcadia University alumni\nUniversity of Pennsylvania alumni\nUniversity of Massachusetts Lowell faculty\nWellesley College faculty\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal." ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?	2	DID Cat Power SEEK ANY MeDICAL ATTENTION?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	false	[ "Lorna Docken is a First Nations leader in Canada, who served as an interim President of Métis Nation—Saskatchewan in early 2004, when Clément Chartier became president of the Métis National Council. She previously served as Vice-President for the provincial association and as Secretary prior to that. She did not seek re-election to any Métis Nation—Saskatchewan executive post for its controversial 26 May 2004 election.\n\nLorna's oldest son is Indigenous musician Joey Stylez, for whom she acts as Manager.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nMétis politicians\nWomen in Saskatchewan politics\nIndigenous leaders in Saskatchewan\n\nCanadian Métis people", "Heidi Noelle Guenther (January 11, 1975 – June 30, 1997) was an American ballerina from 1981 to her death in 1997. Guenther died from cardiac arrest which was believed to be caused by her eating disorder.\n\nBiography \nGuenther was born in San Francisco. She was raised in Los Osos, and trained at School of the American Ballet and Houston Ballet School during the summer. Guenther earned a full scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet School when she was twelve. She performed throughout high school and in 1994, performed in \"Symphony in C\" at the Kennedy Center.\n\nShe was first told to lose weight by the San Francisco Ballet School. In 1994 and in 1995, Artistic director Anna-Marie Holmes encouraged Guenther to lose weight, eventually going to 110 pounds. The weight loss did not stop here. Gunther continued to drop weight at an alarmingly quick rate. Guenther was soon promoted to the Boston Ballet in 1994 as an apprentice dancer. A colleague, Kyra Strasberg, called Guenther, \"a very, very talented dancer with a gorgeous light jump.\"\n\nGuenther broke her foot in the first season, as an apprentice. She did not seek medical attention, because she was afraid she would lose her contract. Instead she rested her foot when she wasn't dancing, causing her to gain five pounds. The Boston Ballet did urge her to not lose any more weight in an evaluation given in January 1997. At the time, the company was worried that she may have an eating disorder. Though the company noticed her weight loss they did not follow up with her about it. Boston Ballet did not address the issue that was an eating disorder. She was considered \"dangerously thin\" by the ballet's records. Holmes, however, told Guenther before she left for summer vacation starting in June 1995, that if she didn't lose the five pounds she gained, she would not gain a contract. Guenther wrote a note to herself for that summer vacation, renewing her commitment to lose weight, \"They always pick people for parts who are skinny.\" While the Boston Ballet did counsel her to gain weight, Guenther's mother noticed that the thinner her daughter was, the more dancing roles she was given. This added to the pressure already placed on Heidi to lose weight.\n\nDuring a family trip to Disneyland, Guenther died on June 30, 1997 of cardiac arrest at the age of 22. There was not an event that led up to her death. Heidi was sitting in the back seat of a vehicle when all of a sudden she was no longer breathing. Her death was speculated to be caused by her immense amount of weight loss.\n\nIn a later search, a stash of laxatives and herbal diet-aid pills were found in her possession. Along with the use of medication to lose weight, many of Heidi's friends stated that she had an unhealthy relationship with purging, as well as skipping meals. An autopsy showed no heart deformities and no abnormal substances in her blood. However, her heart wall was found to be abnormally thin. A week before her death, she told her family that her heart was \"racing\" and \"pounding,\" but she would not seek medical attention.\n\nHer family filed a wrongful death suit in 2000, against the Boston Ballet, for putting excessive pressure on Guenther to lose weight. Holmes was also named as a defendant in the suit, which was filed just before the statute of limitations expired. The suit was later rejected by the courts.\n\nLegacy \nGuenther's death \"was a wake-up call for everyone,\" causing ballet companies to treat eating disorders as a \"top priority.\" Immediately after her death, some American ballet companies said they would change their policies or offer extra information about eating disorders. Her death caused the Boston Ballet to begin nutrition counseling, onsite therapists, wellness seminars and help with weight control. Her family is attempting to start a foundation to help young athletes and dancers in honor of Guenther.\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican ballerinas\n1975 births\n1997 deaths\nDeaths from anorexia nervosa\nNeurological disease deaths in California\nPeople from San Francisco\nBoston Ballet dancers\nPeople from Los Osos, California\n20th-century American ballet dancers" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.", "DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?", "she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:" ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	HOW DID GRUDS AND HER MENTAL HEALTH AFEST HE RLIFE?	3	HOW DID Drugs AND MENTAL HEALTH AFFECT Cat Power's LIFE?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	false	[ "Stephani Louise Hatch is an American sociologist who is a psychiatric epidemiologist at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. Her research consider urban mental health and inequality in mental health provision.\n\nEarly life and education \nHatch studied psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. She was a graduate student at Georgia State University, where she studied women's pharmaceutical treatment challenges. She completed her doctoral research at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she continued her work on drug use in inner city women. Her early research was supported by a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) fellowship. After graduating, Hatch joined Columbia University as a postdoctoral fellow.\n\nResearch and career \nIn 2006, Hatch joined the faculty at King's College London, where she was made Professor in 2019. At King's College, Hatch has studied urban mental health, health inequalities and disparities in how people access mental health support. As part of these efforts, Hatch leads the HERON network. She leads the Wellcome Trust programme Tackling Inequalities and Discrimination Experiences in health Services (TIDES), which looks at the prevalence and impact of discrimination by healthcare providers, and how their behaviour perpetuates health inequalities. TIDES evaluates how various protected characteristics (socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, migration status) create barriers between patients and their healthcare systems. In a study of almost 34,000 adults, Hatch showed that only one hour of exercise a week was enough to prevent depression.\n\nHatch created the HYPE (improving the Health of Young PeoplE) Project. HYPE, which is supported by the Maudsley Hospital. HYPE looks to improve young people's access to community-based and online mental and physical health related information. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, HYPE expanded to evaluate how social distancing, isolation and ongoing lockdowns impacted the lives of young adults. Hatch also looked at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adult mental health, showing that the lockdown and associated uncertainty resulted in the deterioration of mental health.\n\nHatch investigated racial discrimination within the National Health Service. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hatch worked with the NHS Check Study to understand the mental health and employment experiences of Black and minority ethnic NHS staff. She was supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to launch a research programme into the experiences of healthcare workers of colour before and during the pandemic.\n\nSelected publications\n\nReferences \n\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican psychiatrists\nAcademics of King's College London\nUniversity System of Maryland alumni\nAfrican-American academics\n21st-century African-American people", "Carol Aneshensel (born 1947) is an American sociologist. She specializes in the sociology of mental health, focusing especially on how social inequalities lead to corresponding disparities in mental health. She is currently professor and vice chair for the Department of Community Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).\n\nEducation\n\nAneshensel received her B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Sociology at Cornell University.\n\nWork\n\nAneshensel specializes in mental health and medical sociology. Her research investigates connections between how society is organized and how that relates to mental health of its citizens, specifically focusing on the way that social inequalities around gender, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and age lead to differences in mental health along those differentiators. She has worked with large survey samples and utilizes complex statistical analysis of data spanning multiple life stages of subjects.\n\nAneshensel studied the epidemiology of depression and help-seeking behavior under a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (1984-1987). Under continued support from NIMH, she studied models of ethnicity and depression over time, (1987-1992), sources of stress and depressive symptoms in adolescents (1988-1992), and social origins and emotional impact of adolescent stress (1992-1997). She was funded by the California Department of Health Services, Alzheimer's Disease to research the long-term impact of family caregiving (1999-2000). She followed this by a study of neighborhood, socioeconomic status, and adolescent distress beginning in 2000, and later neighborhood SES and emotional distress in old age, both supported by grants from NIMH.\n\nPublications\n\nShe has written and edited several books, such as the Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health and Theory-Based Data Analysis for the Social Sciences. Aneshensel has also published numerous papers.\n\nAwards and honors\n\nReuters named her as a highly cited scientist in 2001, and she is on the Institute for Scientific Information's Highly Cited Researchers List.\nAneshensel's book, Theory-Based Data Analysis for the Social Sciences, received honorable mention for best publication in 2003 from the Sociology of Mental Health section of the American Sociological Association (ASA).\n\nAneshensel received the ASA's Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health in 2004\n\nShe won the ASA's Leo G. Reeder Award for Distinguished Contribution to Medical Sociology in 2008.\n\nReferences\n\n1947 births\nLiving people\nAmerican sociologists\nAmerican women sociologists\nUCLA School of Public Health faculty\nCornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations alumni\nAmerican medical researchers\n21st-century American women" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.", "DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?", "she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:", "HOW DID GRUDS AND HER MENTAL HEALTH AFEST HE RLIFE?", "She later likened the experience to \"a pit of hell.\" Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin." ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	WHAT WAS SHE BEING INTERVIEWED FOR?	4	WHAT WAS Cat Power BEING INTERVIEWED FOR?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	true	[ "Olga Paterova (Cyrillic: Ольга Патерова) is a politician in Transnistria. She was born in Tiraspol, today the capital of Transnistria, in 1984 in what was then part of the Moldovan SSR. She is the press secretary for the political youth organization Breakthrough (Russian: Proriv).\n\nAlong with fellow Breakthrough-leader Alena Arshinova, she was interviewed in December 2005 by Der Spiegel, a German news magazine.\n\nExternal links \n Olga Paterova webpage\n Open mike: Youth activists speak out\n\nYouth activists\n1984 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Tiraspol", "Tina Dupuy is the former communications director for Congressman Alan Grayson, and has been a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist, freelance investigative journalist and comedian.\n\nShe freelances for Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Fast Company, LA Weekly, Newsday, Mother Jones, and Skeptic. Her weekly op-ed column is nationally syndicated through Daryl Cagle's website Cagle Cartoons. Dupuy's writing has also been published in books including a collection of short stories called What Was I Thinking? (St. Martin's Press, 2009) and the English textbook Exploring Language 13th Edition (Longman, 2011).\n\nAfter The Tampa Tribune used an article of Dupuy's without paying for it in 2009, she created a YouTube video to shame the paper into paying $75 for the piece.\n\nAs a teenager, Dupuy was convinced that she was an alcoholic and joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and would eventually gain prominence for telling the story of her sobriety to AA audiences. Twenty years later, however, having drifted away from the organization, she began to question the interpretation she had been given of her life story, and decided the only way to know for sure whether she was an alcoholic was to have a drink and see what happened. She discussed the process that led to this conclusion in an interview for This American Life.\n\nDupuy has spoken openly about being born into the cult The Children of God and subsequently being raised in foster care in California. She created the podcast Cultish, in which she interviewed former members of cults and discussed her uncle Rick Dupuy's public defection.\n\nIn late 2017, Dupuy said Al Franken put his hand on her waist during a photo shoot and groped her.\n\nDupuy and her husband live in New York City.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAmerican columnists\nAmerican women columnists\nAmerican investigative journalists\nAmerican political journalists\nAmerican stand-up comedians\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican media critics\n21st-century American women" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.", "DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?", "she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:", "HOW DID GRUDS AND HER MENTAL HEALTH AFEST HE RLIFE?", "She later likened the experience to \"a pit of hell.\" Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.", "WHAT WAS SHE BEING INTERVIEWED FOR?", "Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. \"" ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SHE WAS HOSPITALIED?	5	WHAT HAPPENED AFTER Cat Power WAS HOSPITALIZED?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat.	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	false	[ "Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books", "\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.", "DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?", "she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:", "HOW DID GRUDS AND HER MENTAL HEALTH AFEST HE RLIFE?", "She later likened the experience to \"a pit of hell.\" Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.", "WHAT WAS SHE BEING INTERVIEWED FOR?", "Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. \"", "WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SHE WAS HOSPITALIED?", "Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat." ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	WHAT IS HEREDITARY ANGIOEDEMA	6	WHAT IS HEREDITARY ANGIOEDEMA	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat.	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	false	[ "Lanadelumab (INN; trade name Takhzyro) is a human monoclonal antibody (class IgG1 kappa) that targets plasma kallikrein (pKal) in order to promote prevention of angioedema in patients with hereditary angioedema. Lanadelumab, was approved in the United States as the first monoclonal antibody indicated for prophylactic treatment to prevent hereditary angioedema (HAE) attacks. Takhzyro is the first treatment for hereditary angioedema (HEA) prevention made by using cells within a lab, not human plasma. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of lanadelumab on 23 August 2018 for patients that are 12 years and older and suffering from either type I or type II hereditary angioedema (HEA). Administration of the medication is done through 1 subcutaneous injection at a dose of 300 milligrams every 2 weeks (every 4-week dosing can be considered in specific patients).\n\nIn phase 1 clinical trials Lanadelumab was well tolerated and was reported to reduce cleavage of kininogen in the plasma of patients with hereditary angioedema and decrease the number of patients experiencing attacks of angioedema. Lanadelumab’s approval in the United States was spearheaded by the data presented in the phase 1b, multicenter, double blind, placebo controlled, multi-ascending-dose trial. Through this trial, Lanadelumab was given Priority Review, Breakthrough Therapy, Orphan Drug designation by the FDA. The phase 3 HELP study evaluated efficacy and safety of lanadelumab. This drug was produced by Dyax Corp and currently under development by Shire.\n\nCommon side effects include pain associated with injection site reactions, injection site bruising, upper respiratory infection, headache, rash, myalgia, dizziness, and diarrhea.\n\nMedical use \nIn the United States, lanadelumab is indicated for patients 12 years and older for the prophylaxis of hereditary angioedema (HAE) attacks. There is no data on the efficacy or safety of lanadelumab in patients under the age of 12 years old. Lanadelumab was not studied in pregnant or breastfeeding women.\n\nAdverse events \n\nIn a phase 3 randomized controlled trial, which examined the efficacy and safety of lanadelumab in preventing hereditary angioedema attacks, the most common adverse events noted in patients being treated were:\n\n Injection site pain in 42.9% of patients\n Viral upper respiratory tract infection in 23.8% of patients\n Headache in 20.2% of patients\n Injection site erythema in 95% of patients \n Injection site bruising in 7.1% of patients \n Dizziness in 6.0% of patients\n\nMechanism of action \nLanadelumab works by binding to an enzyme within the plasma, kallikrein, to inhibit its activity. Kallikrein is a protease that functions to cleave kininogen, subsequently creating kininogen and bradykinin, a potent vasodilator.\n\nPatients suffer from hereditary angioedema (HAE) because of a deficiency or dysfunctional C1 inhibitor, which is an enzyme that regulates the activity of the kallikrein-kinin cascade. Poor regulation of the C1 inhibitor results in increased levels of kallikrein and subsequent proteolysis of kininogen. The proteolysis of the kininogen forces an upscaled production of bradykinin and kininogen within the patient. Increased bradykinin levels cause vasodilation, increased vascular permeability, and the succeeding angioedema and pain associated with hereditary angioedema attacks.\n\nEfficacy trial \nThe phase 3 trial that analyzed the efficacy of lanadelumab is called Effect of Lanadelumab compared with Placebo on Prevention of Hereditary Angioedema Attacks, also known as the HELP study. The objective of the randomized controlled trial was to examine the effectiveness of lanadelumab in preventing hereditary angioedema attacks.\n\nThere were 125 patients studied over a 26-week period in the randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial. Patients were randomized to receive either lanadelumab treatment or placebo in a 1:2 ratio. Subjects randomized to receive lanadelumab were further randomized 1:1:1 ratio to receive doses of either 150 mg every 4 weeks, 300 mg every 4 weeks, or 300 mg every 2 weeks. Patients on the medication had a statistically significant reduction in hereditary angioedema attack rates per month. Patients that took lanadelumab every 2 weeks had 83% less moderate to severe attacks. The study results proved that all three dosing regimens for lanadelumab were more effective than placebo.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nMonoclonal antibodies\nOrphan drugs", "Angioedema is an area of swelling (edema) of the lower layer of skin and tissue just under the skin or mucous membranes. The swelling may occur in the face, tongue, larynx, abdomen, or arms and legs. Often it is associated with hives, which are swelling within the upper skin. Onset is typically over minutes to hours.\n\nThe underlying mechanism typically involves histamine or bradykinin. The version related to histamine is due to an allergic reaction to agents such as insect bites, foods, or medications. The version related to bradykinin may occur due to an inherited problem known as C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency, medications known as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, or a lymphoproliferative disorder.\n\nTreatment to protect the airway may include intubation or cricothyroidotomy. Histamine-related angioedema can be treated with antihistamines, corticosteroids, and epinephrine. In those with bradykinin-related disease a C1 esterase inhibitor, ecallantide, or icatibant may be used. Fresh frozen plasma may be used instead. In the United States the disease affects about 100,000 people a year.\n\nSigns and symptoms\n\nThe skin of the face, normally around the mouth, and the mucosa of the mouth and/or throat, as well as the tongue, swell over the period of minutes to hours. The swelling can also occur elsewhere, typically in the hands. The swelling can be itchy or painful. There may also be slightly decreased sensation in the affected areas due to compression of the nerves. Urticaria (hives) may develop simultaneously.\n\nIn severe cases, stridor of the airway occurs, with gasping or wheezy inspiratory breath sounds and decreasing oxygen levels. Tracheal intubation is required in these situations to prevent respiratory arrest and risk of death.\n\nSometimes, the cause is recent exposure to an allergen (e.g. peanuts), but more often it is either idiopathic (unknown) or only weakly correlated to allergen exposure.\n\nIn hereditary angioedema (HAE), often no direct cause is identifiable, although mild trauma, including dental work and other stimuli, can cause attacks. There is usually no associated itch or urticaria, as it is not an allergic response. Patients with HAE can also have recurrent episodes (often called \"attacks\") of abdominal pain, usually accompanied by intense vomiting, weakness, and in some cases, watery diarrhea, and an unraised, nonitchy splotchy/swirly rash. These stomach attacks can last one to five days on average and can require hospitalization for aggressive pain management and hydration. Abdominal attacks have also been known to cause a significant increase in the patient's white blood cell count, usually in the vicinity of 13,000 to 30,000. As the symptoms begin to diminish, the white count slowly begins to decrease, returning to normal when the attack subsides. As the symptoms and diagnostic tests are almost indistinguishable from an acute abdomen (e.g. perforated appendicitis) it is possible for undiagnosed HAE patients to undergo laparotomy (operations on the abdomen) or laparoscopy (keyhole surgery) that turns out to have been unnecessary.\n\nHAE may also cause swelling in a variety of other locations, most commonly the limbs, genitals, neck, throat and face. The pain associated with these swellings varies from mildly uncomfortable to agonizing pain, depending on its location and severity. Predicting where and when the next episode of edema will occur is impossible. Most patients have an average of one episode per month, but there are also patients who have weekly episodes or only one or two episodes per year. The triggers can vary and include infections, minor injuries, mechanical irritation, operations or stress. In most cases, edema develops over a period of 12–36 hours and then subsides within 2–5 days.\n\nDiagnosis\nThe diagnosis is made on the clinical picture. Routine blood tests (complete blood count, electrolytes, kidney function, liver enzymes) are typically performed. Mast cell tryptase levels may be elevated if the attack was due to an acute allergic (anaphylactic) reaction. When the patient has been stabilized, particular investigations may clarify the exact cause; complement levels, especially depletion of complement factors 2 and 4, may indicate deficiency of C1-inhibitor. HAE type III is a diagnosis of exclusion consisting of observed angioedema along with normal C1 levels and function.\n\nThe hereditary form (HAE) often goes undetected for a long time, as its symptoms resemble those of more common disorders, such as allergy or intestinal colic. An important clue is the failure of hereditary angioedema to respond to antihistamines or steroids, a characteristic that distinguishes it from allergic reactions. It is particularly difficult to diagnose HAE in patients whose episodes are confined to the gastrointestinal tract. Besides a family history of the disease, only a laboratory analysis can provide final confirmation. In this analysis, it is usually a reduced complement factor C4, rather than the C1-INH deficiency itself, that is detected. The former is used during the reaction cascade in the complement system of immune defense, which is permanently overactive due to the lack of regulation by C1-INH.\n\nAngioedema is classified as either hereditary or acquired.\n\nAcquired angioedema\nAcquired angioedema (AAE) can be immunologic, nonimmunologic, or idiopathic. It is usually caused by allergy and occurs together with other allergic symptoms and urticaria. It can also occur as a side effect to certain medications, particularly ACE inhibitors. It is characterized by repetitive episodes of swelling, frequently of the face, lips, tongue, limbs, and genitals. Edema of the gastrointestinal mucosa typically leads to severe abdominal pain; in the upper respiratory tract, it can be life-threatening.\n\nHereditary angioedema\nHereditary angioedema (HAE) exists in three forms, all of which are caused by a genetic mutation inherited in an autosomal dominant form. They are distinguished by the underlying genetic abnormality. Types I and II are caused by mutations in the SERPING1 gene, which result in either diminished levels of the C1-inhibitor protein (type I HAE) or dysfunctional forms of the same protein (type II HAE). Type III HAE has been linked with mutations in the F12 gene, which encodes the coagulation protein factor XII. All forms of HAE lead to abnormal activation of the complement system, and all forms can cause swelling elsewhere in the body, such as the digestive tract. If HAE involves the larynx, it can cause life-threatening asphyxiation. The pathogenesis of this disorder is suspected to be related to unopposed activation of the contact pathway by the initial generation of kallikrein and/or clotting factor XII by damaged endothelial cells. The end product of this cascade, bradykinin, is produced in large amounts and is believed to be the predominant mediator leading to increased vascular permeability and vasodilation that induces typical angioedema \"attacks\".\n\nPathophysiology\n\nBradykinin plays a critical role in all forms of hereditary angioedema. This peptide is a potent vasodilator and increases vascular permeability, leading to rapid accumulation of fluid in the interstitium. This is most obvious in the face, where the skin has relatively little supporting connective tissue, and edema develops easily. Bradykinin is released by various cell types in response to numerous different stimuli; it is also a pain mediator. Dampening or inhibiting bradykinin has been shown to relieve HAE symptoms.\n\nVarious mechanisms that interfere with bradykinin production or degradation can lead to angioedema. ACE inhibitors block ACE, the enzyme that among other actions, degrades bradykinin. In hereditary angioedema, bradykinin formation is caused by continuous activation of the complement system due to a deficiency in one of its prime inhibitors, C1-esterase (aka: C1-inhibitor or C1INH), and continuous production of kallikrein, another process inhibited by C1INH. This serine protease inhibitor (serpin) normally inhibits the association of C1r and C1s with C1q to prevent the formation of the C1-complex, which - in turn - activates other proteins of the complement system. Additionally, it inhibits various proteins of the coagulation cascade, although effects of its deficiency on the development of hemorrhage and thrombosis appear to be limited.\n\nThe three types of hereditary angioedema are:\n Type I - decreased levels of C1INH (85%);\n Type II - normal levels, but decreased function of C1INH (15%);\n Type III - no detectable abnormality in C1INH, occurs in an X-linked dominant fashion and therefore mainly affects women; it can be exacerbated by pregnancy and use of hormonal contraception (exact frequency uncertain). It has been linked with mutations in the factor XII gene.\n\nAngioedema can be due to antibody formation against C1INH; this is an autoimmune disorder. This acquired angioedema is associated with the development of lymphoma.\n\nConsumption of foods that are themselves vasodilators, such as alcoholic beverages or cinnamon, can increase the probability of an angioedema episode in susceptible patients. If the episode occurs at all after the consumption of these foods, its onset may be delayed overnight or by some hours, making the correlation with their consumption somewhat difficult. In contrast, consumption of bromelain in combination with turmeric may be beneficial in reducing symptoms.\n\nThe use of ibuprofen or aspirin may increase the probability of an episode in some patients. The use of acetaminophen typically has a smaller, but still present, increase in the probability of an episode.\n\nManagement\n\nAllergic \nIn allergic angioedema, avoidance of the allergen and use of antihistamines may prevent future attacks. Cetirizine is a commonly prescribed antihistamine for angioedema. Some patients have reported success with the combination of a nightly low dose of cetirizine to moderate the frequency and severity of attacks, followed by a much higher dose when an attack does appear. Severe angioedema cases may require desensitization to the putative allergen, as mortality can occur. Chronic cases require steroid therapy, which generally leads to a good response. In cases where allergic attack is progressing towards airway obstruction, epinephrine may be life-saving.\n\nDrug induction \nACE inhibitors can induce angioedema. ACE inhibitors block the enzyme ACE so it can no longer degrade bradykinin; thus, bradykinin accumulates and can cause angioedema. This complication appears more common in African-Americans. In people with ACE inhibitor angioedema, the drug needs to be discontinued and an alternative treatment needs to be found, such as an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB), which has a similar mechanism but does not affect bradykinin. However, this is controversial, as small studies have shown some patients with ACE inhibitor angioedema can develop it with ARBs, as well.\n\nHereditary \nIn hereditary angioedema (HAE), specific stimuli that have previously led to attacks may need to be avoided in the future. It does not respond to antihistamines, corticosteroids, or epinephrine. Acute treatment consists of C1-INH (C1-esterase inhibitor) concentrate from donor blood, which must be administered intravenously. In an emergency, fresh frozen blood plasma, which also contains C1-INH, can also be used. However, in most European countries, C1-INH concentrate is only available to patients who are participating in special programmes. The medications ecallantide and icatibant may be used to treat attacks. In 2017 these medications cost between 5,700 and 14,000 per dose in the United States, prices that tripled in two years. In those given icatibant, specialists monitor is recommended.\n\nAcquired \nIn acquired angioedema, HAE types I and II, and nonhistaminergic angioedema, antifibrinolytics such as tranexamic acid or ε-aminocaproic acid may be effective. Cinnarizine may also be useful because it blocks the activation of C4 and can be used in patients with liver disease, whereas androgens cannot.\n\nProphylaxis \nFuture attacks of HAE can be prevented by the use of androgens such as danazol, oxandrolone or methyltestosterone. These agents increase the level of aminopeptidase P, an enzyme that inactivates kinins; kinins (especially bradykinin) are responsible for the manifestations of angioedema.\n\nIn 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved lanadelumab, an injectable monoclonal antibody, to prevent attacks of HAE types I and II in people over age 12. Lanadelumab inhibits the plasma enzyme kallikrein, which liberates the kinins bradykinin and kallidin from their kininogen precursors and is produced in excess in individuals with HAE types I and II.\n\nHistory\nHeinrich Quincke first described the clinical picture of angioedema in 1882, though there had been some earlier descriptions of the condition.\n\nWilliam Osler remarked in 1888 that some cases may have a hereditary basis; he coined the term \"hereditary angio-neurotic edema\".\n\nThe link with C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency was proved in 1963.\n\nEpidemiology\nIn the U.S., there are as many as 80,000 to 112,000 emergency department (ED) visits for angioedema annually, and it ranks as the top allergic disorder resulting in hospitalization.\n\nSee also\n Drug-induced angioedema\n Gleich's syndrome (unexplained angioedema with high eosinophil counts)\n Ruconest (C1-inhibitor)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nEffects of external causes\nMedical emergencies\nComplement deficiency\n \nDrug eruptions\nWikipedia medicine articles ready to translate\nWikipedia emergency medicine articles ready to translate" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.", "DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?", "she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:", "HOW DID GRUDS AND HER MENTAL HEALTH AFEST HE RLIFE?", "She later likened the experience to \"a pit of hell.\" Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.", "WHAT WAS SHE BEING INTERVIEWED FOR?", "Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. \"", "WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SHE WAS HOSPITALIED?", "Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat.", "WHAT IS HEREDITARY ANGIOEDEMA", "an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat." ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	HOW DID THIS AFFECT HER	7	HOW DID Hereditary Angioedema AFFECT Cat Power?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour.	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	true	[ "Wendy Demark-Wahnefried is currently employed as a professor, the chair of nutritional sciences, and the associate director for cancer prevention at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In the past she was employed in the Medical Center at Duke University. Demark-Wahnefried’s training is rooted mostly in biochemistry, behavioral science, and genetics. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1978 where she earned her bachelor's degree in Nutritional science and Biochemistry. She currently serves as a member of different panels that are very prominent in the field of cancer research. Demark-Wahnefried is on the panel for the American Cancer Society and the Institute of Medicine and Cancer Research. One of her main research interests deals with how diet and genetic interactions affect breast and prostate cancer.\n\nOver the years, her research has dealt with topics in basic nutritional science, but has also done clinical research that looks at how nutrition in cancer patients. Through this focus of her research, her lab has done some of the largest research looking at how the metabolism changes in response to different cancer treatments. One of her largest research findings deals with providing gardens to better the dietary habits of cancer survivors. Demark-Wahnefried has received a grant and has expanded the Harvest for Health study which is the study that looks at how changes in dietary habits can affect the lives of cancer survivors. She will be looking at 426 different cancer survivors to collect data for her research.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham faculty\nCancer researchers\nUniversity of Michigan alumni", "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" ]
[ "Cat Power", "Substance abuse and health problems", "WHAT KIND OF STUBSTANCE ABUSE DID SHE HAVE?", "she described as a \"psychotic break\" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal.", "DID SHE SEEK ANY MADICAL ATTENTION?", "she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating:", "HOW DID GRUDS AND HER MENTAL HEALTH AFEST HE RLIFE?", "She later likened the experience to \"a pit of hell.\" Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin.", "WHAT WAS SHE BEING INTERVIEWED FOR?", "Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. \"", "WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SHE WAS HOSPITALIED?", "Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat.", "WHAT IS HEREDITARY ANGIOEDEMA", "an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat.", "HOW DID THIS AFFECT HER", "2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour." ]	C_599990da4ed54ab290c7cc659fa78d27_0	WHAT HAPPENED AFTER CANCELING HER TOUR	8	WHAT HAPPENED AFTER Cat Power CANCELED HER TOUR?	Cat Power	In early 2000s, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and The New Yorker suggested, "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem, telling HARP magazine in 2006: "I didn't know I was messed up." Marshall has admitted abusing alcohol in the past; in a 2006 interview with The New York Times, she declared herself to be sober, which she defined as having had "seven drinks in seven months." Following the cancellation of the arranged tour of the Greatest album in 2006, Marshall used the hiatus to recover from what she described as a "psychotic break" brought on by mental exhaustion and alcohol abuse, which had left her feeling suicidal. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute but left after a week, stating: "being in there wasn't me." She later likened the experience to "a pit of hell." Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In 2012, after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. CANNOTANSWER	"I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs.	Charlyn Marie "Chan" Marshall ( ; born January 21, 1972), better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress, and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has become her stage name as a solo artist. Born in Atlanta, Marshall was raised throughout the southern United States, and began performing in local bands in Atlanta in the early 1990s. After opening for Liz Phair in 1993, she worked with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996, she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this, she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely arranged cover songs. After a brief hiatus she released You Are Free (2003), featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians. A second album of cover tracks, Jukebox, was released in 2008. In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting album of her career to date. Critics have noted the constant evolution of Cat Power's sound, with a mix of punk, folk and blues on her earliest albums, and elements of soul and other genres more prevalent in her later material. Early life Charlyn Marie Marshall was born January 21, 1972, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Charlie Marshall, a blues musician and pianist, and Myra Lee Marshall ( Russell). She has one older sister, Miranda ("Mandy"). Her parents divorced in 1979 and remarried shortly thereafter. Her mother remarried and had a son, Lenny, and the family traveled around often because of her stepfather's profession. Marshall attended ten different schools throughout the Southern U.S. in Greensboro; Bartlett and Memphis and throughout Georgia and South Carolina. At times she was left in the care of her grandmother. She was not allowed to buy records when she was growing up, but she listened to her stepfather's record collection, which included artists Otis Redding, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones, as well as her parents' records, which included Black Flag, Sister Sledge, and Barry White. In sixth grade, she adopted the nickname Chan (pronounced "Shawn"), which she would later use professionally. When she was 13, she listened to the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. She had to save up to buy cassettes and the first one she got was a record by the Misfits. At age 16, she became estranged from her mother, and had no further contact with her until she was 24. Religion was a large part of Marshall's upbringing; her father was a Jehovah's Witness, though she attended Southern Baptist churches with her grandmother, where she began singing while learning hymns. Career 1992–1995: Beginnings Marshall's first instrument was a 1950s Silvertone guitar, which she taught herself to play. While working in a pizzeria, she began playing music in Atlanta in the late-1980s with Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, Damon Moore and Fletcher Liegerot, who would get together for jam sessions in a basement. The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends' bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet. In a 2007 interview, she explained that the music itself was more experimental and that playing shows was often an opportunity for her and her friends "to get drunk and take drugs". A number of her local peers became entrenched in heroin use. After the death of her boyfriend, and the subsequent loss of her best friend to AIDS, Marshall relocated to New York City in 1992 with Glen Thrasher. A new boyfriend helped her get a job in a restaurant. Thrasher introduced her to New York's free jazz and experimental music scene. After attending a concert by Anthony Braxton, she gave her first New York show of improvisational music at a warehouse in Brooklyn. One of her shows during this period was as the support act to Man or Astro-man? and consisted of her playing a two-string guitar and singing the word "no" for 15 minutes. Around this time, she met the band God Is My Co-Pilot, who assisted with the release of her first single, "Headlights", in a limited run of 500 copies on their Making of Americans label. Marshall recorded simultaneously her first two albums Dear Sir and Myra Lee in December 1994 in a small basement studio near Mott Street in New York City, with guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley; Marshall and Shelley had initially met after she played a show opening for Liz Phair in 1993. A total of 20 songs were recorded in a single day by the trio, all of which were split into two records, making up Dear Sir and Myra Lee, released respectively in October 1995 and March 1996. Although Dear Sir is considered Marshall's debut album, it is more the length of an EP. 1996–2003: Early Matador releases In 1996, Marshall signed to Matador Records and in September released her third album, What Would the Community Think, which she recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in February 1996. The album was produced by Shelley and again featured Shelley and Foljahn as backing musicians, and spawned a single and music video, "Nude as the News" about the abortion she had at the age of 20. Critics cited the album as evidence of her maturation as a singer and songwriter from the "dense and cathartic" material of her first two releases. After the release of What Would the Community Think, Marshall took a trip to South Africa, after which she left New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she found temporary employment as a babysitter. In the spring of 1997, Marshall relocated with her then-boyfriend, musician Bill Callahan, to a rural farmhouse in Prosperity, South Carolina. After experiencing a hypnogogic nightmare while alone in the farmhouse, Marshall wrote six new songs that would go on to make up the bulk of her following album, Moon Pix (1998), which she recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Australia, with backing musicians Mick Turner and Jim White of the Australian band Dirty Three. Moon Pix was well received by critics, and along with an accompanying music video for the song "Cross Bones Style", helped her gain further recognition. Rolling Stone would later describe it as her 'breakthrough' record. In 1999 where Marshall performed in a series of shows where she provided musical accompaniment to the silent movie The Passion of Joan of Arc. The shows combined original material and covers, some of which would be released on Marshall's fifth album, The Covers Record in 2000. The songs were recorded during two sessions in the summer of 1998 and fall of 1999. Additionally, she performed eleven covers during a Peel session broadcast on June 18, 2000 that included own interpretations of Bob Dylan's "Hard Times in New York Town" and Oasis's "Wonderwall". Her contract with Matador for 2000's The Covers Album reportedly consisted of a Post-it note signed by herself and the company's founder. During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen as a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière. In 2001 she modeled in New York magazines fall fashion issue and was photographed by her friends Mark Borthwick and Katja Rahlwes, who featured her in Purple magazine alongside Catherine Deneuve. In February 2003, Marshall released You Are Free, her first album of original material in five years. The album, which featured guest musicians such as Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, and Warren Ellis, became the first charting Cat Power album, reaching 105 on the Billboard 200. A music video directed by Brett Vapnek was released for the song "He War". Marshall toured extensively through 2003 and 2004, playing shows in Europe, Brazil, the U.S. and Australia. During this period, Marshall's live performances had become erratic and unpredictable, and a 2003 The New Yorker article suggested: "It is foolhardy to describe a Cat Power event as a concert," citing "rambling confessions" and "[talking] to a friend's baby from the stage." Marshall later attributed this period to a drinking problem. Around the time of the release of You Are Free, Marshall purchased a house in South Beach, Miami. 2004–2011: Mainstream success In October 2004, Matador released the DVD film Speaking for Trees, which featured a continuous, nearly two-hour static shot of Marshall performing with her guitar in a woodland. The set was accompanied by an audio CD containing the 18-minute song "Willie Deadwilder", featuring M. Ward also on guitar. On January 22, 2006, Marshall released her seventh album, The Greatest, a Southern soul-influenced album of new material featuring veteran Memphis studio musicians, including Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Leroy Hodges, David Smith, and Steve Potts. The album debuted at 34 on the Billboard 200 and critics noted its relatively "polished and accessible" sound, predicting it was "going to gain her a lot of new fans." The Greatest met with critical acclaim, and won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, making Marshall the first woman to win the honor. It was also named the number 6 best album of 2006 by Rolling Stone Magazine. Simultaneously, Marshall collaborated with several other musicians on different projects, including Mick Collins on a recording of Ludwig Rellstab's poem "Auf Dem Strom" for the film Wayne County Ramblin; a duet with singer-model Karen Elson on an English cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (2007); lead vocals on the Ensemble track "Disown, Delete"; and a reworked version of "Revelations" with Yoko Ono for Ono's 2007 album Yes, I'm a Witch. In the fall of 2006, Marshall became a celebrity spokesperson for a line of jewelry from Chanel, after being seen by Karl Lagerfeld smoking a cigarette outside the Mercer Hotel in New York. Lagerfeld chose Cat Power for the soundtrack to his spring 2007 fashion show. He also photographed Marshall for a Purple feature. In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning film Juno. The same year, she made her feature film debut acting in My Blueberry Nights opposite Jude Law, appearing in a small role. She also appeared in the role of a postal worker in Doug Aitken's MoMA installation Sleepwalkers, which followed the nocturnal lives of five city dwellers. Also in 2007, she featured on Faithless' album track A Kind of Peace. In January 2008, Marshall released her second covers album, Jukebox. Recorded with her recently assembled "Dirty Delta Blues Band", which consisted of Judah Bauer from the Blues Explosion, Gregg Foreman of The Delta 72, Erik Paparazzi of Lizard Music and Jim White of Dirty Three, the album featured the original song "Song to Bobby", Marshall's tribute to Bob Dylan, and a reworking of the Moon Pix song "Metal Heart". She also collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt (2008): She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls". The album was released in July of that year. In September 2008, Marshall and members of the Dirty Delta Blues (Erik Paparazzi and Gregg Foreman) recorded their version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for a Lincoln car commercial. In 2013, Cat Power's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was used in Apple's Christmas commercial "Misunderstood". In December 2008, she released Dark End of the Street, an EP consisting of songs left over from the Jukebox sessions. In 2009, she provided backing vocals on Marianne Faithfull's cover of "Hold On, Hold On" by Neko Case on the 2009 album Easy Come Easy Go. In 2011, she also featured as guest vocalist on "Tonight You Belong to Me" on Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs. 2012–2018: Sun and Wanderer In February 2012, Marshall cancelled a scheduled appearance in Tel Aviv, Israel, citing "much confusion" and that she felt "sick in her spirit." She had faced calls to boycott the country over its conflict with Palestine. Two months later, she cancelled her appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, claiming that she "didn't think it was fair to play Coachella while my new album is not yet finished," also hinting that her forthcoming record is "almost done" and will see release later in 2012. Marshall's ninth studio album, Sun, was released in September 2012, after releasing the lead single "Ruin" as a free download the previous June. The album features prominent electronica elements and arrangements, which Marshall incorporated into the "really slow guitar-based songs" she had originally written. In a review published on September 4, 2012, on Consequence of Sound, Sun was praised as a unique album and received a four-star rating. In summation, reviewer Sarah Grant wrote that Marshall's 2012 release is "a passionate pop album of electronic music filtered through a singer-songwriter's soul." The album debuted at a career chart-high of No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 23,000 copies on its opening week. In July 2015, it was announced that Marshall would be providing narration for the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy J. Berg, which revolves around the life of Janis Joplin and premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. On television, Marshall starred on China, IL, in the hourlong musical special "Magical Pet". Marshall performs three original songs written by creator Brad Neely. On July 28, 2017, Marshall announced on Instagram that her tenth studio album was "ready to go", although she did not disclose its title or expected release date. On March 20, 2018, it was announced that Marshall would perform a Moon Pix 20th anniversary concert at Sydney Opera House, which occurred from May 25 to June 16 and featured album collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner. On July 18, 2018, Marshall announced her 10th studio album, Wanderer, and shared the title track as an introduction to the album. She released two more singles, "Woman" featuring Lana Del Rey on August 15 and a cover of Rihanna's "Stay" on September 18, before the album was released on October 5, 2018, through Domino Recording Company. It was her first to not be released on Matador Records since 1996. According to Marshall, Matador were not happy with the recordings for Wanader, they wanted her to rerecord it and make it sound more commercial. She embarked on a world tour in promotion of the album in September. Power embarked on a US arena tour in August 2021 supporting Alanis Morissette and Garbage. She was a last-minute addition to the lineup, after original opening act Liz Phair canceled her appearances. Power contributed four new songs to the soundtrack of the 2021 film Flag Day. Her eleventh studio album, Covers, was released on January 14, 2022, and will be supported by a US tour. Personal life In 2005, Marshall entered a relationship with actor Giovanni Ribisi, and resided with Ribisi and his daughter in Los Angeles. They also had a rental house in Malibu where she had a studio. Following the release of The Greatest, Marshall canceled her impending spring 2006 tour, and used the hiatus to recover from mental health issues. As part of her recovery, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, leaving after a week. Marshall gave a first person account of her breakdown in an interview for the November 2006 issue of Spin. In June 2012, it was reported that Marshall had ended her relationship with Ribisi, and the completion of her upcoming record had coincided with their breakup: "I cut my hair off three days [after the breakup], got on a plane to France, and finished the shit." Shortly after the release of Sun, Marshall began having trouble breathing and was hospitalized multiple times, though doctors were unable to diagnose her. "I thought I was dying," she recounted. "They told me they were going to put me in a coma to save my lungs. My friend came to visit and told me I'd made the Billboard Top 10 and all I could think was: 'I don't want to die.'" Marshall was subsequently diagnosed with hereditary angioedema, an immune disorder that causes sporadic swelling of the face and throat due to C1 esterase inhibitor deficiency. In September 2012, she stated she had been hospitalized due to the condition over eight times, which led her to cancel her European tour. In April 2015, Marshall announced that she had recently given birth to a son, but did not name the child's father. Artistry Musical style Marshall's releases as Cat Power have frequently been noted by critics for their somber, blues-influenced instrumentation and melancholy lyrics, leading LA Weekly to dub her the "queen of sadcore". Marshall, however, claims her music is often misinterpreted, and that many of her songs are "not sad, [but] triumphant." She has recounted blues, old soul music, British rock 'n' roll, as well as hymns and gospel music as being integral influences on her. Cat Power's early releases have been described as blending elements of punk, folk, and blues, while her later releases (post-2000) began to incorporate more sophisticated arrangements and production. The Greatest (2006), Marshall's seventh release, was heavily soul-influenced and incorporated R&B elements; the Memphis Rhythm Band provided backing instrumentation on the album. Unlike her previous releases, which featured sparse guitar and piano arrangements, The Greatest was described by Marshall biographer Sarah Goodman as her first "full-blown studio record with sophisticated production and senior players backing [Marshall] up." Performances Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. She has also cut short performances without explanation. On some occasions this has been attributed to stage fright and the influence of alcohol. Marshall spoke openly about suffering from severe bouts of stage fright, specifically in her early career, and admitted that her stage fright stemmed from issues regarding depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse. By 2006, she had found new collaborators and had stopped drinking. Marshall's performance style became more enthusiastic and professional; a review in Salon noted that she was "delivering onstage", and called The Greatest "polished and sweetly upbeat". Philanthropy A live version of the gospel song "Amazing Grace"—culled from a performance with the Dirty Delta Blues band—was released on the charity compilation Dark Was the Night. Released by independent British label 4AD on February 17, 2009, the set benefited the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. She also appeared in a PETA ad, encouraging people to spay and neuter their pets. On December 25, 2011, Marshall released a reworking of the What Would the Community Think track "King Rides By" for download from her official website, with all proceeds from sales of the track being donated to The Festival of Children Foundation and The Ali Forney Center. A music video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao was released to promote the song. Discography Studio albums Dear Sir (1995) Myra Lee (1996) What Would the Community Think (1996) Moon Pix (1998) The Covers Record (2000) You Are Free (2003) The Greatest (2006) Jukebox (2008) Sun (2012) Wanderer (2018) Covers (2022) Filmography Awards and nominations Won: Shortlist Music Prize for The Greatest Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2007 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Art Vinyl for Jukebox Nominated: Best International Female Solo Artist, 2013 BRIT Awards Nominated: Best Cinematography for "Where Is My Love?", 2007 Antville Music Video Awards Nominated: Comeback of the Year, 2018 Rober Awards Music Prize Nominated: Best Foreign Solo Act, Wanderer Best Foreign Album, 2019 Sweden GAFFA Awards Nominated: Best Pop Video - International for "Go Up", 2017 UK Music Video Awards References Sources External links 1972 births American alternative rock musicians American women singer-songwriters American women rock singers Living people Alternative rock singers Alternative rock guitarists Alternative rock pianists Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state) Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Musicians from Atlanta People from Prosperity, South Carolina 21st-century American women guitarists 21st-century American guitarists 20th-century American women guitarists 20th-century American guitarists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American women singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Singer-songwriters from South Carolina Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)	true	[ "B.A.P Live on Earth 2014 Continent Tour was a 2014 concert tour headlined by the South Korean boyband B.A.P. The tour was held from March to June 2014 in Seoul, New York, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Düsseldorf, Paris, London, Melbourne, Sydney, Taipei, Singapore, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Osaka, Chiba, and Bangkok. The concert's main theme was 'Earth Needs You,' and six keywords (Justice, Emotion, Passion, Love, Happiness, and You) related to the theme made up the continuity.\n\nA week before the start of their South American leg, TS Entertainment released an official statement canceling B.A.P's tour in South America due to insufficient time for the artists to rest and recharge. TS Entertainment stated that they placed their artists condition as top priority when canceling this tour.\n\nReception \n\nOn March 9, B.A.P’s Seoul concert was broadcast in movie theaters in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan.\n\nIt is estimated that 20,000 global fans were able to view the concert in real-time with B.A.P.\n\nAfter 11 months, BAP returned to America with their first stop in New York city selling out. According to Soompi, the boys were more mature and charismatic during this tour.\nNot only did they captivated fans that attended their previous NYC concert last year, but they blew away new ones. \n\nAbout this tour Bang Yong Guk, the group's leader said:\n\nSetlist\n\nConcerts\n\nReferences\n\n2014 concert tours\nB.A.P (South Korean band) concert tours", "\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim" ]
[ "Abenaki", "New Hampshire and minority recognition" ]	C_ad08de4e979a49e88d487e14488a9c34_0	what happened in new hampshire?	1	What happened in New Hampshire?	Abenaki	In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. CANNOTANSWER	the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group.	The Abenaki (Abnaki, Abinaki, Alnôbak) are an indigenous ethnic group in North America, officially recognised in the United States as a Native American tribe and in Canada as a First Nations. They are one of the Algonquian-speaking peoples of northeastern North America. The Abenaki originated in a region called Wabanahkik in the Eastern Algonquian languages (meaning "Dawn Land"), a territory now including parts of Quebec and the Maritimes of Canada and northern sections of the New England region of the United States. The Abenaki are one of the five members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. "Abenaki" is a linguistic and geographic grouping; historically, there was no strong central authority – the Abenaki were composed of numerous smaller bands and tribes who shared many cultural traits. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare. Names The word Abenaki and its syncope, Abnaki, are both derived from Wabanaki, or Wôbanakiak, meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language. While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy. Wôbanakiak is derived from wôban ("dawn" or "east") and aki ("land") (compare Proto-Algonquian wa·pan and axkyi) — the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England and the Maritimes. It is sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the area—Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Miꞌkmaq—as a single group. The Abenaki people also call themselves Alnôbak, meaning "Real People" (c.f., Lenape language: Lenapek) and by the autonym Alnanbal, meaning "men". Historically, ethnologists have classified the Abenaki by geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki. Within these groups are the Abenaki bands: Western Abenaki Arsigantegok (also Arrasaguntacook, Ersegontegog, Assagunticook, Anasaguntacook), lived along the St. Francis River in Québec. Principal village: St. Francis (Odanak). The people were referred to as St. Francis River Abenakis, and this term gradually was applied to all Western Abenaki. Cowasuck (also Cohass, Cohasiac, Koasek, Koasek, Coos – "People of the Pines"), lived in the upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal village: Cowass, near Newbury, Vermont. Missiquoi (also Masipskwoik, Mazipskikskoik, Missique, Misiskuoi, Missisco, Missiassik – "People of the Flint"), also known as the Sokoki. They lived in the Missisquoi Valley, from Lake Champlain to the headwaters. Principal village around Swanton, Vermont. Sokoki (also Sokwaki, Squakheag, Socoquis, Sokoquius, Zooquagese, Soquachjck, Onejagese – "People Who Separated"), lived in the Middle and Upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal villages: Squakheag, Northfield, Massachusetts, and Fort Hill. Pennacook (also Penacook, Penikoke, Openango), lived in the Merrimack Valley, therefore sometimes called Merrimack. Principal village Penacook, New Hampshire. The Pennacook were once a large confederacy who were politically distinct and competitive with their northern Abenaki neighbors. Smaller tribes: Amoskeay Cocheco Nashua Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Often classed as Eastern Abenaki. Pemigewasset Piscataqua Souhegan Winnipesaukee (also Winnibisauga, Wioninebeseck, Winninebesakik – "region of the land around lakes"), lived along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Wabanaki Nation Odanak (also known as Pierreville, MRC Nicolet-Yamaska), lived southwest of Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the St. Francois River and Magog River. Wôlinak (also Becancour, MRC Becancour), lived around Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the Bécancour River. Eastern Abenaki Androscoggin (also Alessikantekw, Arosaguntacock, Amariscoggin), lived in the Androscoggin Valley and along the St. Francis River, therefore often called St. Francis River Abenaki. Kennebec (also Kinipekw, Kennebeck, Caniba, later known as Norridgewock), lived in the Kennebec River Valley in northern Maine. Principal village: Norridgewock (Naridgewalk, Neridgewok, Noronjawoke); other villages: Amaseconti (Amesokanti, Anmissoukanti), Kennebec, and Sagadahoc. Penobscot (also Panawahpskek, Pamnaouamske, Pentagouet), lived in the Penobscot Valley. Principal villages: Penobscot (Pentagouet), now Indian Island, Old Town, Maine; other villages: Agguncia, Asnela, Catawamtek, Kenduskeag, Mattawamkeag, Meecombe, Negas, Olamon, Passadumkeag, Precaute, Segocket, and Wabigganus. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Pequawket (also Pigwacket, Pequaki), lived along the Saco River and in the White Mountains. Principal village Pigwacket was located on the upper Saco River near present-day Fryeburg, Maine. Occupied an intermediate location, therefore sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Smaller tribes: Apikwahki Amaseconti, lived between the upper Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers in western Maine. Kwupahag (also Kwapahag) Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Rocameca, lived along the upper Androscoggin River, near Canton, Maine. Wawinak (also Ouanwinak, Sheepscot, Wawenock, Wawnock, Wewenoc), lived in the coastal areas of southern Maine. Maliseet and Passamaquoddy: Maliseet (also Wolastoqiyik, Walastekwyk, Malecite), lived in the inland of upper Maine and middle New Brunswick along the St. John River. Principal villages: Meductic, Aukpaque. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Passamaquoddy (also Peskotomuhktati, Pestomuhkati), lived on the Passamaquoddy Bay coast and inland, between the St. John, St. Croix and Penobscot rivers, in present-day Maine and New Brunswick. Principal village: Machias. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Location The homeland of the Abenaki, which they call Ndakinna (Our Land), extended across most of what is now northern New England, southern Quebec, and the southern Canadian Maritimes. The Eastern Abenaki population was concentrated in portions of New Brunswick and Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains. The other major tribe, the Western Abenaki, lived in the Connecticut River valley in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The Missiquoi lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The Pennacook lived along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire. The maritime Abenaki lived around the St. Croix and Wolastoq (Saint John River) valleys near the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick. The English settlement of New England and frequent wars forced many Abenaki to retreat to Quebec. The Abenaki settled in the Sillery region of Quebec between 1676 and 1680, and subsequently, for about twenty years, lived on the banks of the Chaudière River near the falls, before settling in Odanak and Wôlinak in the early eighteenth century. In those days, the Abenaki practiced a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing, trapping, berry picking and on growing corn, beans, squash, potatoes and tobacco. They also produced baskets, made of ash and sweet grass, for picking wild berries, and boiled maple sap to make syrup. Basket weaving remains a traditional activity for members of both communities. During the Anglo-French wars, the Abenaki were allies of France, having been displaced from Ndakinna by immigrating English people. An anecdote from the period tells the story of a Maliseet war chief named Nescambuit or Assacumbuit, who killed more than 140 enemies of King Louis XIV of France and received the rank of knight. Not all Abenaki natives fought on the side of the French, however; many remained on their native lands in the northern colonies. Much of the trapping was done by the people and traded to the English colonists for durable goods. These contributions by Native American Abenaki peoples went largely unreported. Two tribal communities formed in Canada, one once known as Saint-Francois-du-lac near Pierreville, Quebec (now called Odanak, Abenaki for "coming home"), and the other near Bécancour (now known as Wôlinak) on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, directly across the river from Trois-Rivières. These two Abenaki reserves continue to grow and develop. Since the year 2000, the total Abenaki population (on and off reserve) has doubled to 2,101 members in 2011. Approximately 400 Abenaki reside on these two reserves, which cover a total area of less than . The unrecognized majority are off-reserve members, living in various cities and towns across Canada and the United States. There are about 3,200 Abenaki living in Vermont and New Hampshire, without reservations, chiefly around Lake Champlain. The remaining Abenaki people live in multi-racial towns and cities across Canada and the US, mainly in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and northern New England. Four Abenaki tribes are located in Vermont. On April 22, 2011, Vermont officially recognized two Abenaki tribes: the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe. On May 7, 2012, the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi and the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation received recognition by the State of Vermont. The Nulhegan are located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Brownington, and the Elnu Abenaki are located in southeastern Vermont with tribal headquarters in Jamaica, Vermont. The Elnu Abenaki tribe focuses mainly on carrying on the traditions of their ancestors through their children and teaching about their culture. The chief and political leader of the Nulhegan Band is Don Stevens. The Sokoki (the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi) are located along the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Swanton. Their traditional land is along the river, extending to its outlet at Lake Champlain. In December 2012, Vermont's Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe created a tribal forest in the town of Barton. This forest was established with assistance from the Vermont Sierra Club and the Vermont Land Trust. It contains a hunting camp and maple sugaring facilities that are administered cooperatively by the Nulhegan. The forest contains . The St Francis Missisquoi Tribe owns forest land in the town of Brunswick, centered around the Brunswick Springs. These springs are believed to be a sacred traditional religious site of the Abenaki. Together these Vermont forests are the only Abenaki-held lands outside of the existing reservations in Quebec and Maine. Language The Abenaki language is closely related to the Panawahpskek (Penobscot) language. Other neighboring Wabanaki tribes, the Pestomuhkati (Passamaquoddy), Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), and Miꞌkmaq, and other Eastern Algonquian languages share many linguistic similarities. It has come close to extinction as a spoken language. Tribal members are working to revive the Abenaki language at Odanak (means "in the village"), a First Nations Abenaki reserve near Pierreville, Quebec, and throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and New York state. The language is polysynthetic, meaning that a phrase or an entire sentence is expressed by a single word. For example, the word for "white man" awanoch is a combination of the words awani meaning "who" and uji meaning "from". Thus, the word for "white man" literally translates to "Who is this man and where does he come from?" History In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the Abenakis' neighbors, pre-contact Iroquois, were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples, including the Abenaki. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest. In 1614, Thomas Hunt captured 24 young Abenaki people and took them to England. During the European colonization of North America, the land occupied by the Abenaki was in the area between the new colonies of England in Massachusetts and the French in Quebec. Since no party agreed to territorial boundaries, there was regular conflict among them. The Abenaki were traditionally allied with the French; during the reign of Louis XIV, Chief Assacumbuit was designated a member of the French nobility for his service. Facing annihilation from English attacks and epidemics of new infectious diseases, the Abenaki started to emigrate to Quebec around 1669. The governor of New France allocated two seigneuries (large self-administered areas similar to feudal fiefs). The first was on the Saint Francis River and is now known as the Odanak Indian Reservation; the second was founded near Bécancour and is called the Wolinak Indian Reservation. Abenaki wars When the Wampanoag people under King Philip (Metacomet) fought the English colonists in New England in 1675 in King Philip's War, the Abenaki joined the Wampanoag. For three years they fought along the Maine frontier in the First Abenaki War. The Abenaki pushed back the line of white settlement through devastating raids on scattered farmhouses and small villages. The war was settled by a peace treaty in 1678, with the Wampanoag more than decimated and many Native survivors having been sold into slavery in Bermuda. During Queen Anne's War in 1702, the Abenaki were allied with the French; they raided numerous small English villages in Maine, from Wells to Casco, killing about 300 settlers over ten years. They also occasionally raided into Massachusetts, for instance in Groton and Deerfield in 1704. The raids stopped when the war ended. Some captives were adopted into the Mohawk and Abenaki tribes; older captives were generally ransomed, and the colonies carried on a brisk trade. The Third Abenaki War (1722–25), called Father Rale's War, erupted when the French Jesuit missionary Sébastien Rale (or Rasles, ~1657?-1724) encouraged the Abenaki to halt the spread of Yankee settlements. When the Massachusetts militia tried to seize Rale, the Abenaki raided the settlements at Brunswick, Arrowsick, and Merry-Meeting Bay. The Massachusetts government then declared war and bloody battles were fought at Norridgewock (1724), where Rale was killed, and at a daylong battle at the Indian village near present-day Fryeburg, Maine, on the upper Saco River (1725). Peace conferences at Boston and Casco Bay brought an end to the war. After Rale died the Abenaki moved to a settlement on the St. Francis River. The Abenaki from St. Francois continued to raid British settlements in their former homelands along the New England frontier during Father Le Loutre's War (see Northeast Coast Campaign (1750)) and the French and Indian War. Canada The development of tourism projects has allowed the Canadian Abenaki to develop a modern economy, while preserving their culture and traditions. For example, since 1960, the Odanak Historical Society has managed the first and one of the largest aboriginal museums in Quebec, a few miles from the Quebec-Montreal axis. Over 5,000 people visit the Abenaki Museum annually. Several Abenaki companies include: in Wôlinak, General Fiberglass Engineering employs a dozen natives, with annual sales exceeding C$3 million. Odanak is now active in transportation and distribution. Notable Abenaki from this area include the documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin (National Film Board of Canada). United States Federally Recognized Tribes The Penobscot Indian Nation, Passamaquoddy people, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians have been federally recognized as tribes in the United States. The Abenaki are a recognized First Nation within Canada. State Recognized Tribes The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, the Ko'Asek Abenaki Nation of the Koas, the Elnu Band of Abenaki, and the Abenaki Nation of the Missiquoi are all state-recognized tribes in the United States, all in the state of Vermont. The Abenaki are recognized as having minority status in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Recognition allows applicants to seek scholarship funds reserved for American Indians and to receive federal "native made" designation for the bands' arts and crafts. Vermont In 2006, the state of Vermont officially recognized the Abenaki as a people, but not a tribe. The state noted that many Abenaki had been assimilated, and only small remnants remained on reservations during and after the French and Indian War, later eugenics projects further decimated the Abenaki people of America through forced sterilization and questionable 'miscarriages' at birth. As noted above, facing annihilation, many Abenaki had begun emigrating to Canada, then under French control, around 1669. the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. This is largely due to the fact that Vermont Abenaki heavily distanced themselves from their Canadian brethren, causing them to fall away from their tribes. Because of this, it was believed for a long time that there were no more Abenaki in Vermont. However, scholarly sources and oral histories remind that due to the period of eugenics surveys in northern New England, many indigenous peoples changed their names and stated themselves to be white or non-native. This practice is known as paper genocide. There are also scholars who argue that Abenaki groups in the United States have existed continuously since colonization. These groups have organized, re-organized, separated, and sometimes relocated as they endured settler colonial encroachments on their land, war, eugenics, poverty and indenture, and discrimination. New Hampshire and minority recognition In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. In 2021, a bill was introduced to the New Hampshire legislature to allow New Hampshire communities to rename locations in the Abenaki language. If the bill is passed, the Commission on Native American affairs would be required to help towns choose suitable names. Culture There are a dozen variations of the name "Abenaki", such as Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies and others. The Abenaki were described in the Jesuit Relations as not cannibals, and as docile, ingenious, temperate in the use of liquor, and not profane. All Abenaki tribes lived a lifestyle similar to the Algonquian-speaking peoples of southern New England. They cultivated crops for food, and located their villages on or near fertile river floodplains. Other less major, but still important, parts of their diet included game and fish from hunting and fishing, and wild plants. They lived in scattered bands of extended families for most of the year. Each man had different hunting territories inherited through his father. Unlike the Iroquois, the Abenaki were patrilineal. Bands came together during the spring and summer at temporary villages near rivers, or somewhere along the seacoast for planting and fishing. These villages occasionally had to be fortified, depending on the alliances and enemies of other tribes or of Europeans near the village. Abenaki villages were quite small when compared to those of the Iroquois; the average number of people was about 100. Most Abenaki crafted dome-shaped, bark-covered wigwams for housing, though a few preferred oval-shaped long houses. During the winter, the Abenaki lived in small groups further inland. The homes there were bark-covered wigwams shaped in a way similar to the teepees of the Great Plains Indians. During the winter, the Abenaki lined the inside of their conical wigwams with bear and deer skins for warmth. The Abenaki also built long houses similar to those of the Iroquois. The Abenaki hold on to their traditions and ways of life in several ways. The Sokoki do so in the current constitution for their government. It has a chief, a council of elders, and methods and means for election to the council and chieftainship, as well as requirements for citizenship in the tribe. They also list many of the different traditions they uphold, such as the different dances they perform and what those dances mean. During several of these dances there is no photography allowed, out of respect for the culture. For several, there are instructions such as "All stand while it is sung" or "All Stand to Show Respect." Hair style and other marriage traditions Traditionally, Abenaki men kept their hair long and loose. When a man found a girlfriend, he would tie his hair. When he married, he would attach the hair of the scalp with a piece of leather and shave all but the ponytail. The modernized spiritual version has the man with a girlfriend tying his hair and braiding it. When he marries, he keeps all his hair in a braid, shaving only the side and back of the head. The spiritual meaning surrounding this cut is most importantly to indicate betrothal or fidelity as a married Abenaki man. In much the same way as the Christian marriage tradition, there is an (optional) exchange and blessing of wedding rings. These rings are the outward and visible sign of the unity of this couple. Changes in the hair style were symbolic of a complex courtship process. The man would give the woman a box made of a fine wood, which was decorated with the virtues of the woman; the woman would give a similar box to the man. Everyone in the tribe must agree to the marriage. They erect a pole planted in the earth, and if anyone disagrees, he strikes the pole. The disagreement must be resolved or the marriage does not happen. Gender, food, division of labor, and other cultural traits The Abenaki were a farming society that supplemented agriculture with hunting and gathering. Generally the men were the hunters. The women tended the fields and grew the crops. In their fields, they planted the crops in groups of "sisters". The three sisters were grown together: the stalk of corn supported the beans, and squash or pumpkins provided ground cover and reduced weeds. The men would hunt bears, deer, fish, and birds. The Abenaki were a patrilineal society, which was common among New England tribes. In this they differed from the six Iroquois tribes to the west in New York, and from many other North American Native tribes who had matrilineal societies. In those systems, women controlled property and hereditary leadership was passed through the women's line. Children born to a married couple belonged to the mother's clan, and her eldest brother was an important mentor, especially for boys. The biological father had a lesser role. Group decision-making was done by a consensus method. The idea is that every group (family, band, tribe, etc.) must have equal say, so each group would elect a spokesperson. Each smaller group would send the decision of the group to an impartial facilitator. If there was a disagreement, the facilitator would tell the groups to discuss again. In addition to the debates, there was a goal of total understanding for all members. If there was not total understanding, the debate would stop until there was understanding. When the tribal members debate issues, they consider the Three Truths: Peace: Is this preserved? Righteousness: Is it moral? Power: Does it preserve the integrity of the group? These truths guide all group deliberations, and the goal is to reach a consensus. If there is no consensus for change, they agree to keep the status quo. Storytelling Storytelling is a major part of Abenaki culture. It is used not only as entertainment but also as a teaching method. The Abenaki view stories as having lives of their own and being aware of how they are used. Stories were used as a means of teaching children behavior. Children were not to be mistreated, and so instead of punishing the child, they would be told a story. One of the stories is of Azban the Raccoon. This is a story about a proud raccoon that challenges a waterfall to a shouting contest. When the waterfall does not respond, Azban dives into the waterfall to try to outshout it; he is swept away because of his pride. This story would be used to show a child the pitfalls of pride. Mythology Ethnobotany The Abenaki smash the flowers and leaves of Ranunculus acris and sniff them for headaches. They consume the fruit of Vaccinium myrtilloides as part of their traditional diet. They also use the fruit and the grains of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides for food. Many other plants are used for various healing and treatment modalities, including for the skin, as a disinfectant, as a cure-all, as a respiratory aid, for colds, coughs, fevers, grippe, gas, blood strengthening, headaches and other pains, rheumatism, demulcent, nasal inflammation, anthelmintic, for the eyes, abortifacent, for the bones, antihemorrhagic, as a sedative, anaphrodisiac, swellings, urinary aid, gastrointestinal aid, as a hemostat, pediatric aid (such as for teething), and other unspecified or general uses. They use Hierochloe odorata, Apocynum, Betula papyrifera, Fraxinus americana, Fraxinus nigra, Laportea canadensis, a variety of Salix species, and Tilia americana var. americana for making baskets, canoes, snowshoes, and whistles. They use Hierochloe odorata and willow to make containers, Betula papyrifera to create containers, moose calls and other utilitarian pieces, and the bark of Cornus sericea ssp. sericea for smoking. They also use Acer rubrum, Acornus calamus, an unknown Amelanchier species, Caltha palustris, Cardamine diphylla, Cornus canadensis, an unknown Crataegus species, Fragaria virginiana, Gaultheria procumbens, Osmunda cinnamomea, Phaseolus vulgaris, Photinia melanocarpa, Prunus virginiana, Rubus idaeus and another unknown Rubus species, Solanum tuberosum, Spiraea alba var. latifolia, Vaccinium angustifolium, and Zea mays as a tea, soup, jelly, sweetener, condiment, snack, or meal. The Abenaki use the gum of Abies balsamea for slight itches and as an antiseptic ointment. They stuff the leaves, needles and wood into pillows as a panacea. Population and epidemics Before the Abenaki, except the Pennacook and Miꞌkmaq, had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contacts with European fishermen resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 16th century. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English settlement of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75%, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. The more isolated Western Abenaki suffered fewer fatalities, losing about half of their original population of 10,000. The new diseases continued to strike in epidemics, starting with smallpox in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with influenza passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and diphtheria came through 10 years later. Smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with measles, 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758. The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and King Philip's War. Because of this, descendants of nearly every southern New England Algonquian tribe can be found among the Abenaki people. A century later, fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remained after the American Revolution. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 1,549 people identified themselves as Abenaki. So did 2,544 people in the 2000 U.S census, with 6,012 people claiming Abenaki heritage. In 1991 Canadian Abenaki numbered 945; by 2006 they numbered 2,164. Fiction Lydia Maria Child wrote of the Abenaki in her short story, "The Church in the Wilderness" (1828). Several Abenaki characters and much about their 18th-century culture are featured in the Kenneth Roberts novel Arundel (1930). The film Northwest Passage (1940) is based on a novel of the same name by Roberts. The Abenaki are featured in Charles McCarry's historical novel Bride of the Wilderness (1988), and James Archibald Houston's novel Ghost Fox (1977), both of which are set in the eighteenth century; and in Jodi Picoult's Second Glance (2003) and Lone Wolf (2012) novels, set in the contemporary world. Books for younger readers both have historical settings: Joseph Bruchac's The Arrow Over the Door (1998) (grades 4–6) is set in 1777; and Beth Kanell's young adult novel, The Darkness Under the Water (2008), concerns a young Abenaki-French Canadian girl during the time of the Vermont Eugenics Project, 1931–1936. The first sentence in Norman Mailer's novel Harlot's Ghost makes reference to the Abenaki: "On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago." Non-fiction Letters and other non-fiction writing can be found in the anthology Dawnland Voices. Selections include letters from leader of the early praying town, Wamesit in Massachusetts Samuel Numphow, Sagamore Kancamagus, and writings on the Abenaki language by former chief of the reserve at Odanak in Quebec, Joseph Laurent as well as many others. Accounts of life with the Abenaki can be found in the captivity narratives written by women taken captive by the Abenaki from the early New England settlements: Mary Rowlandson (1682), Hannah Duston (1702); Elizabeth Hanson (1728); Susannah Willard Johnson (1754); and Jemima Howe (1792). Maps Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south): Notable people Jesse Bruchac, author and linguist Joseph Bruchac, author Indian Joe, a scout around the time of the American Revolutionary War Billy Kidd, former alpine ski racer Joseph Laurent, chief and author Henry Lorne Masta, chief and author Donna L. Moody, repatriation activist Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker and documentarian Annick Obonsawin, voice actress and singer Donald E. Pelotte, Roman Catholic Bishop of Gallup (New Mexico and Arizona) Christine Sioui-Wawanoloath, writer and artist living in Quebec Elijah Tahamont, silent film actor Dark Cloud Alexis Wawanoloath, member of National Assembly of Quebec Footnotes Bibliography Aubery, Joseph Fr. and Stephen Laurent, 1995. Father Aubery's French Abenaki Dictionary: English translation. S. Laurent (Translator). Chisholm Bros. Publishing Baker, C. Alice, 1897. True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada during the Old French and Indian Wars. Press of E.A. Hall & Company, Greenfield, Massachusetts Charland, Thomas-M. (O.P.), 1964. Les Abenakis D'Odanak: Histoire des Abénakis D'Odanak (1675–1937). Les Éditions du Lévrier, Montreal, QC Coleman, Emma Lewis. New England Captives Carried to Canada: Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars, Heritage Books, 1989 (reprint 1925). Day, Gordon, 1981. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, National Museum Of Man Mercury Series , Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 71 . Reprinted (paperback) Sept. 2006: Vancouver: Global Language Press], ; Dec. 2009 (hardcover): Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series; and April 2010 (paperback): Nabu Press. Masta, Henry Lorne, 1932. Abenaki Legends, Grammar and Place Names. Victoriaville, PQ: La Voix Des Bois-Franes. Reprinted 2008: Toronto: Global Language Press, Maurault, Joseph-Anselme (Abbot), 1866. Histoire des Abénakis, depuis 1605 jusqu'à nos jours. Published at L'Atelier typographique de la "Gazette de Sorel", QC Moondancer and Strong Woman, 2007. A Cultural History of the Native Peoples of Southern New England: Voices from Past and Present. Boulder, CO: Bauu Press, Further reading Other grammar books and dictionaries include: Dr. Gordon M. Day's two-volume Western Abenaki Dictionary (August 1994), Paperback: 616 pages, Publisher: Canadian Museum Of Civilization Chief Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names (1932), Odanak, Quebec, reprinted in 2008 by Global Language Press Joseph Aubery's Father Aubery's French-Abenaki Dictionary (1700), translated into English-Abenaki by Stephen Laurent, and published in hardcover (525 pp.) by Chisholm Bros. Publishing. External links Missisquoi Abenaki Tribal Council Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe Elnu Tribe of the Abenaki Abenakis of Odanak Council "Welcome to the Abenaki Language" Native Languages of the Americas: Abnaki-Penobscot (Abenaki Language) Abenaki language - recordings Western Abenaki Dictionary and Radio Online Gordan M. Day, "The Identity of the St. Francis Indians" Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples First Nations in Atlantic Canada Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands Native American history of Maine Native American tribes in Maine Native American tribes in Vermont Native American tribes in New Hampshire First Nations in Quebec State recognized Native American tribes Wabanaki Confederacy	true	[ "Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75 (1966), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.\n\nBaer, a supervisor of a county recreation area, brought a civil libel claim in New Hampshire state court against the petitioner Rosenblatt. The recreation area had been used primarily as a ski resort. The column in question had criticized the fiscal management of the area by Baer, stating \"What happened to all the money last year? and every other year?\" Between the trial and an appeal brought by petitioner, the Court had decided New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, in which they held that a State cannot award damages to a public official for a defamatory falsehood relating to official conduct unless the official can show actual malice. The New Hampshire Supreme Court had affirmed the award in the original case.\n\nOpinion of the Court \nIn an 8–1 decision, the Court reversed the decision of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. It argued that there was a probability that Baer was a public official and therefore would be required to show actual malice in the depictions presented by the newspaper. It was left to the trial judge to decide whether Baer qualified as a public figure.\n\nSee also \n New York Times Co. v. Sullivan\n Defamation\n\nExternal links\n \n ACLU summary of the case\n\nNew Hampshire state case law\nUnited States defamation case law\nSki areas and resorts in New Hampshire\nUnited States Supreme Court cases\nUnited States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court\n1966 in United States case law\nBelknap County, New Hampshire", "New Hampshire's 4th State Senate district is one of 24 districts in the New Hampshire Senate. It has been represented by Democrat David Watters since 2012.\n\nGeography\nDistrict 4 is based in Strafford County, including Dover and the nearby towns of Barrington, Rollinsford, and Somersworth. Between 2002 and 2012, the district included most of Belknap County and two towns in Strafford County. \n\nThe district is located entirely within New Hampshire's 1st congressional district. It borders the state of Maine.\n\nRecent election results\n\n2020\n\n2018\n\n2016\n\n2014\n\n2012\n\nFederal and statewide results in District 4\n\nHistorical election results\nThese results happened prior to 2012 redistricting, and thus were held under very different district lines.\n\n2010\n\n2008\n\n2006\n\nReferences\n\n4\nStrafford County, New Hampshire" ]
[ "Abenaki", "New Hampshire and minority recognition", "what happened in new hampshire?", "the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group." ]	C_ad08de4e979a49e88d487e14488a9c34_0	Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?	2	Are there any other interesting aspects about this article besides the Abenaki proposing legislation for recognition as a minority group?	Abenaki	In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. CANNOTANSWER	Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims	The Abenaki (Abnaki, Abinaki, Alnôbak) are an indigenous ethnic group in North America, officially recognised in the United States as a Native American tribe and in Canada as a First Nations. They are one of the Algonquian-speaking peoples of northeastern North America. The Abenaki originated in a region called Wabanahkik in the Eastern Algonquian languages (meaning "Dawn Land"), a territory now including parts of Quebec and the Maritimes of Canada and northern sections of the New England region of the United States. The Abenaki are one of the five members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. "Abenaki" is a linguistic and geographic grouping; historically, there was no strong central authority – the Abenaki were composed of numerous smaller bands and tribes who shared many cultural traits. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare. Names The word Abenaki and its syncope, Abnaki, are both derived from Wabanaki, or Wôbanakiak, meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language. While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy. Wôbanakiak is derived from wôban ("dawn" or "east") and aki ("land") (compare Proto-Algonquian wa·pan and axkyi) — the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England and the Maritimes. It is sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the area—Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Miꞌkmaq—as a single group. The Abenaki people also call themselves Alnôbak, meaning "Real People" (c.f., Lenape language: Lenapek) and by the autonym Alnanbal, meaning "men". Historically, ethnologists have classified the Abenaki by geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki. Within these groups are the Abenaki bands: Western Abenaki Arsigantegok (also Arrasaguntacook, Ersegontegog, Assagunticook, Anasaguntacook), lived along the St. Francis River in Québec. Principal village: St. Francis (Odanak). The people were referred to as St. Francis River Abenakis, and this term gradually was applied to all Western Abenaki. Cowasuck (also Cohass, Cohasiac, Koasek, Koasek, Coos – "People of the Pines"), lived in the upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal village: Cowass, near Newbury, Vermont. Missiquoi (also Masipskwoik, Mazipskikskoik, Missique, Misiskuoi, Missisco, Missiassik – "People of the Flint"), also known as the Sokoki. They lived in the Missisquoi Valley, from Lake Champlain to the headwaters. Principal village around Swanton, Vermont. Sokoki (also Sokwaki, Squakheag, Socoquis, Sokoquius, Zooquagese, Soquachjck, Onejagese – "People Who Separated"), lived in the Middle and Upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal villages: Squakheag, Northfield, Massachusetts, and Fort Hill. Pennacook (also Penacook, Penikoke, Openango), lived in the Merrimack Valley, therefore sometimes called Merrimack. Principal village Penacook, New Hampshire. The Pennacook were once a large confederacy who were politically distinct and competitive with their northern Abenaki neighbors. Smaller tribes: Amoskeay Cocheco Nashua Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Often classed as Eastern Abenaki. Pemigewasset Piscataqua Souhegan Winnipesaukee (also Winnibisauga, Wioninebeseck, Winninebesakik – "region of the land around lakes"), lived along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Wabanaki Nation Odanak (also known as Pierreville, MRC Nicolet-Yamaska), lived southwest of Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the St. Francois River and Magog River. Wôlinak (also Becancour, MRC Becancour), lived around Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the Bécancour River. Eastern Abenaki Androscoggin (also Alessikantekw, Arosaguntacock, Amariscoggin), lived in the Androscoggin Valley and along the St. Francis River, therefore often called St. Francis River Abenaki. Kennebec (also Kinipekw, Kennebeck, Caniba, later known as Norridgewock), lived in the Kennebec River Valley in northern Maine. Principal village: Norridgewock (Naridgewalk, Neridgewok, Noronjawoke); other villages: Amaseconti (Amesokanti, Anmissoukanti), Kennebec, and Sagadahoc. Penobscot (also Panawahpskek, Pamnaouamske, Pentagouet), lived in the Penobscot Valley. Principal villages: Penobscot (Pentagouet), now Indian Island, Old Town, Maine; other villages: Agguncia, Asnela, Catawamtek, Kenduskeag, Mattawamkeag, Meecombe, Negas, Olamon, Passadumkeag, Precaute, Segocket, and Wabigganus. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Pequawket (also Pigwacket, Pequaki), lived along the Saco River and in the White Mountains. Principal village Pigwacket was located on the upper Saco River near present-day Fryeburg, Maine. Occupied an intermediate location, therefore sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Smaller tribes: Apikwahki Amaseconti, lived between the upper Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers in western Maine. Kwupahag (also Kwapahag) Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Rocameca, lived along the upper Androscoggin River, near Canton, Maine. Wawinak (also Ouanwinak, Sheepscot, Wawenock, Wawnock, Wewenoc), lived in the coastal areas of southern Maine. Maliseet and Passamaquoddy: Maliseet (also Wolastoqiyik, Walastekwyk, Malecite), lived in the inland of upper Maine and middle New Brunswick along the St. John River. Principal villages: Meductic, Aukpaque. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Passamaquoddy (also Peskotomuhktati, Pestomuhkati), lived on the Passamaquoddy Bay coast and inland, between the St. John, St. Croix and Penobscot rivers, in present-day Maine and New Brunswick. Principal village: Machias. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Location The homeland of the Abenaki, which they call Ndakinna (Our Land), extended across most of what is now northern New England, southern Quebec, and the southern Canadian Maritimes. The Eastern Abenaki population was concentrated in portions of New Brunswick and Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains. The other major tribe, the Western Abenaki, lived in the Connecticut River valley in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The Missiquoi lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The Pennacook lived along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire. The maritime Abenaki lived around the St. Croix and Wolastoq (Saint John River) valleys near the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick. The English settlement of New England and frequent wars forced many Abenaki to retreat to Quebec. The Abenaki settled in the Sillery region of Quebec between 1676 and 1680, and subsequently, for about twenty years, lived on the banks of the Chaudière River near the falls, before settling in Odanak and Wôlinak in the early eighteenth century. In those days, the Abenaki practiced a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing, trapping, berry picking and on growing corn, beans, squash, potatoes and tobacco. They also produced baskets, made of ash and sweet grass, for picking wild berries, and boiled maple sap to make syrup. Basket weaving remains a traditional activity for members of both communities. During the Anglo-French wars, the Abenaki were allies of France, having been displaced from Ndakinna by immigrating English people. An anecdote from the period tells the story of a Maliseet war chief named Nescambuit or Assacumbuit, who killed more than 140 enemies of King Louis XIV of France and received the rank of knight. Not all Abenaki natives fought on the side of the French, however; many remained on their native lands in the northern colonies. Much of the trapping was done by the people and traded to the English colonists for durable goods. These contributions by Native American Abenaki peoples went largely unreported. Two tribal communities formed in Canada, one once known as Saint-Francois-du-lac near Pierreville, Quebec (now called Odanak, Abenaki for "coming home"), and the other near Bécancour (now known as Wôlinak) on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, directly across the river from Trois-Rivières. These two Abenaki reserves continue to grow and develop. Since the year 2000, the total Abenaki population (on and off reserve) has doubled to 2,101 members in 2011. Approximately 400 Abenaki reside on these two reserves, which cover a total area of less than . The unrecognized majority are off-reserve members, living in various cities and towns across Canada and the United States. There are about 3,200 Abenaki living in Vermont and New Hampshire, without reservations, chiefly around Lake Champlain. The remaining Abenaki people live in multi-racial towns and cities across Canada and the US, mainly in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and northern New England. Four Abenaki tribes are located in Vermont. On April 22, 2011, Vermont officially recognized two Abenaki tribes: the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe. On May 7, 2012, the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi and the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation received recognition by the State of Vermont. The Nulhegan are located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Brownington, and the Elnu Abenaki are located in southeastern Vermont with tribal headquarters in Jamaica, Vermont. The Elnu Abenaki tribe focuses mainly on carrying on the traditions of their ancestors through their children and teaching about their culture. The chief and political leader of the Nulhegan Band is Don Stevens. The Sokoki (the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi) are located along the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Swanton. Their traditional land is along the river, extending to its outlet at Lake Champlain. In December 2012, Vermont's Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe created a tribal forest in the town of Barton. This forest was established with assistance from the Vermont Sierra Club and the Vermont Land Trust. It contains a hunting camp and maple sugaring facilities that are administered cooperatively by the Nulhegan. The forest contains . The St Francis Missisquoi Tribe owns forest land in the town of Brunswick, centered around the Brunswick Springs. These springs are believed to be a sacred traditional religious site of the Abenaki. Together these Vermont forests are the only Abenaki-held lands outside of the existing reservations in Quebec and Maine. Language The Abenaki language is closely related to the Panawahpskek (Penobscot) language. Other neighboring Wabanaki tribes, the Pestomuhkati (Passamaquoddy), Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), and Miꞌkmaq, and other Eastern Algonquian languages share many linguistic similarities. It has come close to extinction as a spoken language. Tribal members are working to revive the Abenaki language at Odanak (means "in the village"), a First Nations Abenaki reserve near Pierreville, Quebec, and throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and New York state. The language is polysynthetic, meaning that a phrase or an entire sentence is expressed by a single word. For example, the word for "white man" awanoch is a combination of the words awani meaning "who" and uji meaning "from". Thus, the word for "white man" literally translates to "Who is this man and where does he come from?" History In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the Abenakis' neighbors, pre-contact Iroquois, were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples, including the Abenaki. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest. In 1614, Thomas Hunt captured 24 young Abenaki people and took them to England. During the European colonization of North America, the land occupied by the Abenaki was in the area between the new colonies of England in Massachusetts and the French in Quebec. Since no party agreed to territorial boundaries, there was regular conflict among them. The Abenaki were traditionally allied with the French; during the reign of Louis XIV, Chief Assacumbuit was designated a member of the French nobility for his service. Facing annihilation from English attacks and epidemics of new infectious diseases, the Abenaki started to emigrate to Quebec around 1669. The governor of New France allocated two seigneuries (large self-administered areas similar to feudal fiefs). The first was on the Saint Francis River and is now known as the Odanak Indian Reservation; the second was founded near Bécancour and is called the Wolinak Indian Reservation. Abenaki wars When the Wampanoag people under King Philip (Metacomet) fought the English colonists in New England in 1675 in King Philip's War, the Abenaki joined the Wampanoag. For three years they fought along the Maine frontier in the First Abenaki War. The Abenaki pushed back the line of white settlement through devastating raids on scattered farmhouses and small villages. The war was settled by a peace treaty in 1678, with the Wampanoag more than decimated and many Native survivors having been sold into slavery in Bermuda. During Queen Anne's War in 1702, the Abenaki were allied with the French; they raided numerous small English villages in Maine, from Wells to Casco, killing about 300 settlers over ten years. They also occasionally raided into Massachusetts, for instance in Groton and Deerfield in 1704. The raids stopped when the war ended. Some captives were adopted into the Mohawk and Abenaki tribes; older captives were generally ransomed, and the colonies carried on a brisk trade. The Third Abenaki War (1722–25), called Father Rale's War, erupted when the French Jesuit missionary Sébastien Rale (or Rasles, ~1657?-1724) encouraged the Abenaki to halt the spread of Yankee settlements. When the Massachusetts militia tried to seize Rale, the Abenaki raided the settlements at Brunswick, Arrowsick, and Merry-Meeting Bay. The Massachusetts government then declared war and bloody battles were fought at Norridgewock (1724), where Rale was killed, and at a daylong battle at the Indian village near present-day Fryeburg, Maine, on the upper Saco River (1725). Peace conferences at Boston and Casco Bay brought an end to the war. After Rale died the Abenaki moved to a settlement on the St. Francis River. The Abenaki from St. Francois continued to raid British settlements in their former homelands along the New England frontier during Father Le Loutre's War (see Northeast Coast Campaign (1750)) and the French and Indian War. Canada The development of tourism projects has allowed the Canadian Abenaki to develop a modern economy, while preserving their culture and traditions. For example, since 1960, the Odanak Historical Society has managed the first and one of the largest aboriginal museums in Quebec, a few miles from the Quebec-Montreal axis. Over 5,000 people visit the Abenaki Museum annually. Several Abenaki companies include: in Wôlinak, General Fiberglass Engineering employs a dozen natives, with annual sales exceeding C$3 million. Odanak is now active in transportation and distribution. Notable Abenaki from this area include the documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin (National Film Board of Canada). United States Federally Recognized Tribes The Penobscot Indian Nation, Passamaquoddy people, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians have been federally recognized as tribes in the United States. The Abenaki are a recognized First Nation within Canada. State Recognized Tribes The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, the Ko'Asek Abenaki Nation of the Koas, the Elnu Band of Abenaki, and the Abenaki Nation of the Missiquoi are all state-recognized tribes in the United States, all in the state of Vermont. The Abenaki are recognized as having minority status in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Recognition allows applicants to seek scholarship funds reserved for American Indians and to receive federal "native made" designation for the bands' arts and crafts. Vermont In 2006, the state of Vermont officially recognized the Abenaki as a people, but not a tribe. The state noted that many Abenaki had been assimilated, and only small remnants remained on reservations during and after the French and Indian War, later eugenics projects further decimated the Abenaki people of America through forced sterilization and questionable 'miscarriages' at birth. As noted above, facing annihilation, many Abenaki had begun emigrating to Canada, then under French control, around 1669. the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. This is largely due to the fact that Vermont Abenaki heavily distanced themselves from their Canadian brethren, causing them to fall away from their tribes. Because of this, it was believed for a long time that there were no more Abenaki in Vermont. However, scholarly sources and oral histories remind that due to the period of eugenics surveys in northern New England, many indigenous peoples changed their names and stated themselves to be white or non-native. This practice is known as paper genocide. There are also scholars who argue that Abenaki groups in the United States have existed continuously since colonization. These groups have organized, re-organized, separated, and sometimes relocated as they endured settler colonial encroachments on their land, war, eugenics, poverty and indenture, and discrimination. New Hampshire and minority recognition In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. In 2021, a bill was introduced to the New Hampshire legislature to allow New Hampshire communities to rename locations in the Abenaki language. If the bill is passed, the Commission on Native American affairs would be required to help towns choose suitable names. Culture There are a dozen variations of the name "Abenaki", such as Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies and others. The Abenaki were described in the Jesuit Relations as not cannibals, and as docile, ingenious, temperate in the use of liquor, and not profane. All Abenaki tribes lived a lifestyle similar to the Algonquian-speaking peoples of southern New England. They cultivated crops for food, and located their villages on or near fertile river floodplains. Other less major, but still important, parts of their diet included game and fish from hunting and fishing, and wild plants. They lived in scattered bands of extended families for most of the year. Each man had different hunting territories inherited through his father. Unlike the Iroquois, the Abenaki were patrilineal. Bands came together during the spring and summer at temporary villages near rivers, or somewhere along the seacoast for planting and fishing. These villages occasionally had to be fortified, depending on the alliances and enemies of other tribes or of Europeans near the village. Abenaki villages were quite small when compared to those of the Iroquois; the average number of people was about 100. Most Abenaki crafted dome-shaped, bark-covered wigwams for housing, though a few preferred oval-shaped long houses. During the winter, the Abenaki lived in small groups further inland. The homes there were bark-covered wigwams shaped in a way similar to the teepees of the Great Plains Indians. During the winter, the Abenaki lined the inside of their conical wigwams with bear and deer skins for warmth. The Abenaki also built long houses similar to those of the Iroquois. The Abenaki hold on to their traditions and ways of life in several ways. The Sokoki do so in the current constitution for their government. It has a chief, a council of elders, and methods and means for election to the council and chieftainship, as well as requirements for citizenship in the tribe. They also list many of the different traditions they uphold, such as the different dances they perform and what those dances mean. During several of these dances there is no photography allowed, out of respect for the culture. For several, there are instructions such as "All stand while it is sung" or "All Stand to Show Respect." Hair style and other marriage traditions Traditionally, Abenaki men kept their hair long and loose. When a man found a girlfriend, he would tie his hair. When he married, he would attach the hair of the scalp with a piece of leather and shave all but the ponytail. The modernized spiritual version has the man with a girlfriend tying his hair and braiding it. When he marries, he keeps all his hair in a braid, shaving only the side and back of the head. The spiritual meaning surrounding this cut is most importantly to indicate betrothal or fidelity as a married Abenaki man. In much the same way as the Christian marriage tradition, there is an (optional) exchange and blessing of wedding rings. These rings are the outward and visible sign of the unity of this couple. Changes in the hair style were symbolic of a complex courtship process. The man would give the woman a box made of a fine wood, which was decorated with the virtues of the woman; the woman would give a similar box to the man. Everyone in the tribe must agree to the marriage. They erect a pole planted in the earth, and if anyone disagrees, he strikes the pole. The disagreement must be resolved or the marriage does not happen. Gender, food, division of labor, and other cultural traits The Abenaki were a farming society that supplemented agriculture with hunting and gathering. Generally the men were the hunters. The women tended the fields and grew the crops. In their fields, they planted the crops in groups of "sisters". The three sisters were grown together: the stalk of corn supported the beans, and squash or pumpkins provided ground cover and reduced weeds. The men would hunt bears, deer, fish, and birds. The Abenaki were a patrilineal society, which was common among New England tribes. In this they differed from the six Iroquois tribes to the west in New York, and from many other North American Native tribes who had matrilineal societies. In those systems, women controlled property and hereditary leadership was passed through the women's line. Children born to a married couple belonged to the mother's clan, and her eldest brother was an important mentor, especially for boys. The biological father had a lesser role. Group decision-making was done by a consensus method. The idea is that every group (family, band, tribe, etc.) must have equal say, so each group would elect a spokesperson. Each smaller group would send the decision of the group to an impartial facilitator. If there was a disagreement, the facilitator would tell the groups to discuss again. In addition to the debates, there was a goal of total understanding for all members. If there was not total understanding, the debate would stop until there was understanding. When the tribal members debate issues, they consider the Three Truths: Peace: Is this preserved? Righteousness: Is it moral? Power: Does it preserve the integrity of the group? These truths guide all group deliberations, and the goal is to reach a consensus. If there is no consensus for change, they agree to keep the status quo. Storytelling Storytelling is a major part of Abenaki culture. It is used not only as entertainment but also as a teaching method. The Abenaki view stories as having lives of their own and being aware of how they are used. Stories were used as a means of teaching children behavior. Children were not to be mistreated, and so instead of punishing the child, they would be told a story. One of the stories is of Azban the Raccoon. This is a story about a proud raccoon that challenges a waterfall to a shouting contest. When the waterfall does not respond, Azban dives into the waterfall to try to outshout it; he is swept away because of his pride. This story would be used to show a child the pitfalls of pride. Mythology Ethnobotany The Abenaki smash the flowers and leaves of Ranunculus acris and sniff them for headaches. They consume the fruit of Vaccinium myrtilloides as part of their traditional diet. They also use the fruit and the grains of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides for food. Many other plants are used for various healing and treatment modalities, including for the skin, as a disinfectant, as a cure-all, as a respiratory aid, for colds, coughs, fevers, grippe, gas, blood strengthening, headaches and other pains, rheumatism, demulcent, nasal inflammation, anthelmintic, for the eyes, abortifacent, for the bones, antihemorrhagic, as a sedative, anaphrodisiac, swellings, urinary aid, gastrointestinal aid, as a hemostat, pediatric aid (such as for teething), and other unspecified or general uses. They use Hierochloe odorata, Apocynum, Betula papyrifera, Fraxinus americana, Fraxinus nigra, Laportea canadensis, a variety of Salix species, and Tilia americana var. americana for making baskets, canoes, snowshoes, and whistles. They use Hierochloe odorata and willow to make containers, Betula papyrifera to create containers, moose calls and other utilitarian pieces, and the bark of Cornus sericea ssp. sericea for smoking. They also use Acer rubrum, Acornus calamus, an unknown Amelanchier species, Caltha palustris, Cardamine diphylla, Cornus canadensis, an unknown Crataegus species, Fragaria virginiana, Gaultheria procumbens, Osmunda cinnamomea, Phaseolus vulgaris, Photinia melanocarpa, Prunus virginiana, Rubus idaeus and another unknown Rubus species, Solanum tuberosum, Spiraea alba var. latifolia, Vaccinium angustifolium, and Zea mays as a tea, soup, jelly, sweetener, condiment, snack, or meal. The Abenaki use the gum of Abies balsamea for slight itches and as an antiseptic ointment. They stuff the leaves, needles and wood into pillows as a panacea. Population and epidemics Before the Abenaki, except the Pennacook and Miꞌkmaq, had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contacts with European fishermen resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 16th century. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English settlement of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75%, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. The more isolated Western Abenaki suffered fewer fatalities, losing about half of their original population of 10,000. The new diseases continued to strike in epidemics, starting with smallpox in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with influenza passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and diphtheria came through 10 years later. Smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with measles, 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758. The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and King Philip's War. Because of this, descendants of nearly every southern New England Algonquian tribe can be found among the Abenaki people. A century later, fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remained after the American Revolution. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 1,549 people identified themselves as Abenaki. So did 2,544 people in the 2000 U.S census, with 6,012 people claiming Abenaki heritage. In 1991 Canadian Abenaki numbered 945; by 2006 they numbered 2,164. Fiction Lydia Maria Child wrote of the Abenaki in her short story, "The Church in the Wilderness" (1828). Several Abenaki characters and much about their 18th-century culture are featured in the Kenneth Roberts novel Arundel (1930). The film Northwest Passage (1940) is based on a novel of the same name by Roberts. The Abenaki are featured in Charles McCarry's historical novel Bride of the Wilderness (1988), and James Archibald Houston's novel Ghost Fox (1977), both of which are set in the eighteenth century; and in Jodi Picoult's Second Glance (2003) and Lone Wolf (2012) novels, set in the contemporary world. Books for younger readers both have historical settings: Joseph Bruchac's The Arrow Over the Door (1998) (grades 4–6) is set in 1777; and Beth Kanell's young adult novel, The Darkness Under the Water (2008), concerns a young Abenaki-French Canadian girl during the time of the Vermont Eugenics Project, 1931–1936. The first sentence in Norman Mailer's novel Harlot's Ghost makes reference to the Abenaki: "On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago." Non-fiction Letters and other non-fiction writing can be found in the anthology Dawnland Voices. Selections include letters from leader of the early praying town, Wamesit in Massachusetts Samuel Numphow, Sagamore Kancamagus, and writings on the Abenaki language by former chief of the reserve at Odanak in Quebec, Joseph Laurent as well as many others. Accounts of life with the Abenaki can be found in the captivity narratives written by women taken captive by the Abenaki from the early New England settlements: Mary Rowlandson (1682), Hannah Duston (1702); Elizabeth Hanson (1728); Susannah Willard Johnson (1754); and Jemima Howe (1792). Maps Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south): Notable people Jesse Bruchac, author and linguist Joseph Bruchac, author Indian Joe, a scout around the time of the American Revolutionary War Billy Kidd, former alpine ski racer Joseph Laurent, chief and author Henry Lorne Masta, chief and author Donna L. Moody, repatriation activist Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker and documentarian Annick Obonsawin, voice actress and singer Donald E. Pelotte, Roman Catholic Bishop of Gallup (New Mexico and Arizona) Christine Sioui-Wawanoloath, writer and artist living in Quebec Elijah Tahamont, silent film actor Dark Cloud Alexis Wawanoloath, member of National Assembly of Quebec Footnotes Bibliography Aubery, Joseph Fr. and Stephen Laurent, 1995. Father Aubery's French Abenaki Dictionary: English translation. S. Laurent (Translator). Chisholm Bros. Publishing Baker, C. Alice, 1897. True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada during the Old French and Indian Wars. Press of E.A. Hall & Company, Greenfield, Massachusetts Charland, Thomas-M. (O.P.), 1964. Les Abenakis D'Odanak: Histoire des Abénakis D'Odanak (1675–1937). Les Éditions du Lévrier, Montreal, QC Coleman, Emma Lewis. New England Captives Carried to Canada: Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars, Heritage Books, 1989 (reprint 1925). Day, Gordon, 1981. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, National Museum Of Man Mercury Series , Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 71 . Reprinted (paperback) Sept. 2006: Vancouver: Global Language Press], ; Dec. 2009 (hardcover): Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series; and April 2010 (paperback): Nabu Press. Masta, Henry Lorne, 1932. Abenaki Legends, Grammar and Place Names. Victoriaville, PQ: La Voix Des Bois-Franes. Reprinted 2008: Toronto: Global Language Press, Maurault, Joseph-Anselme (Abbot), 1866. Histoire des Abénakis, depuis 1605 jusqu'à nos jours. Published at L'Atelier typographique de la "Gazette de Sorel", QC Moondancer and Strong Woman, 2007. A Cultural History of the Native Peoples of Southern New England: Voices from Past and Present. Boulder, CO: Bauu Press, Further reading Other grammar books and dictionaries include: Dr. Gordon M. Day's two-volume Western Abenaki Dictionary (August 1994), Paperback: 616 pages, Publisher: Canadian Museum Of Civilization Chief Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names (1932), Odanak, Quebec, reprinted in 2008 by Global Language Press Joseph Aubery's Father Aubery's French-Abenaki Dictionary (1700), translated into English-Abenaki by Stephen Laurent, and published in hardcover (525 pp.) by Chisholm Bros. Publishing. External links Missisquoi Abenaki Tribal Council Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe Elnu Tribe of the Abenaki Abenakis of Odanak Council "Welcome to the Abenaki Language" Native Languages of the Americas: Abnaki-Penobscot (Abenaki Language) Abenaki language - recordings Western Abenaki Dictionary and Radio Online Gordan M. Day, "The Identity of the St. Francis Indians" Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples First Nations in Atlantic Canada Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands Native American history of Maine Native American tribes in Maine Native American tribes in Vermont Native American tribes in New Hampshire First Nations in Quebec State recognized Native American tribes Wabanaki Confederacy	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" ]
[ "Abenaki", "New Hampshire and minority recognition", "what happened in new hampshire?", "the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group.", "Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?", "Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims" ]	C_ad08de4e979a49e88d487e14488a9c34_0	what happened to the bill?	3	What happened to the Abenaki's bill?	Abenaki	In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. CANNOTANSWER	This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature.	The Abenaki (Abnaki, Abinaki, Alnôbak) are an indigenous ethnic group in North America, officially recognised in the United States as a Native American tribe and in Canada as a First Nations. They are one of the Algonquian-speaking peoples of northeastern North America. The Abenaki originated in a region called Wabanahkik in the Eastern Algonquian languages (meaning "Dawn Land"), a territory now including parts of Quebec and the Maritimes of Canada and northern sections of the New England region of the United States. The Abenaki are one of the five members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. "Abenaki" is a linguistic and geographic grouping; historically, there was no strong central authority – the Abenaki were composed of numerous smaller bands and tribes who shared many cultural traits. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare. Names The word Abenaki and its syncope, Abnaki, are both derived from Wabanaki, or Wôbanakiak, meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language. While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy. Wôbanakiak is derived from wôban ("dawn" or "east") and aki ("land") (compare Proto-Algonquian wa·pan and axkyi) — the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England and the Maritimes. It is sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the area—Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Miꞌkmaq—as a single group. The Abenaki people also call themselves Alnôbak, meaning "Real People" (c.f., Lenape language: Lenapek) and by the autonym Alnanbal, meaning "men". Historically, ethnologists have classified the Abenaki by geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki. Within these groups are the Abenaki bands: Western Abenaki Arsigantegok (also Arrasaguntacook, Ersegontegog, Assagunticook, Anasaguntacook), lived along the St. Francis River in Québec. Principal village: St. Francis (Odanak). The people were referred to as St. Francis River Abenakis, and this term gradually was applied to all Western Abenaki. Cowasuck (also Cohass, Cohasiac, Koasek, Koasek, Coos – "People of the Pines"), lived in the upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal village: Cowass, near Newbury, Vermont. Missiquoi (also Masipskwoik, Mazipskikskoik, Missique, Misiskuoi, Missisco, Missiassik – "People of the Flint"), also known as the Sokoki. They lived in the Missisquoi Valley, from Lake Champlain to the headwaters. Principal village around Swanton, Vermont. Sokoki (also Sokwaki, Squakheag, Socoquis, Sokoquius, Zooquagese, Soquachjck, Onejagese – "People Who Separated"), lived in the Middle and Upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal villages: Squakheag, Northfield, Massachusetts, and Fort Hill. Pennacook (also Penacook, Penikoke, Openango), lived in the Merrimack Valley, therefore sometimes called Merrimack. Principal village Penacook, New Hampshire. The Pennacook were once a large confederacy who were politically distinct and competitive with their northern Abenaki neighbors. Smaller tribes: Amoskeay Cocheco Nashua Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Often classed as Eastern Abenaki. Pemigewasset Piscataqua Souhegan Winnipesaukee (also Winnibisauga, Wioninebeseck, Winninebesakik – "region of the land around lakes"), lived along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Wabanaki Nation Odanak (also known as Pierreville, MRC Nicolet-Yamaska), lived southwest of Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the St. Francois River and Magog River. Wôlinak (also Becancour, MRC Becancour), lived around Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the Bécancour River. Eastern Abenaki Androscoggin (also Alessikantekw, Arosaguntacock, Amariscoggin), lived in the Androscoggin Valley and along the St. Francis River, therefore often called St. Francis River Abenaki. Kennebec (also Kinipekw, Kennebeck, Caniba, later known as Norridgewock), lived in the Kennebec River Valley in northern Maine. Principal village: Norridgewock (Naridgewalk, Neridgewok, Noronjawoke); other villages: Amaseconti (Amesokanti, Anmissoukanti), Kennebec, and Sagadahoc. Penobscot (also Panawahpskek, Pamnaouamske, Pentagouet), lived in the Penobscot Valley. Principal villages: Penobscot (Pentagouet), now Indian Island, Old Town, Maine; other villages: Agguncia, Asnela, Catawamtek, Kenduskeag, Mattawamkeag, Meecombe, Negas, Olamon, Passadumkeag, Precaute, Segocket, and Wabigganus. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Pequawket (also Pigwacket, Pequaki), lived along the Saco River and in the White Mountains. Principal village Pigwacket was located on the upper Saco River near present-day Fryeburg, Maine. Occupied an intermediate location, therefore sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Smaller tribes: Apikwahki Amaseconti, lived between the upper Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers in western Maine. Kwupahag (also Kwapahag) Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Rocameca, lived along the upper Androscoggin River, near Canton, Maine. Wawinak (also Ouanwinak, Sheepscot, Wawenock, Wawnock, Wewenoc), lived in the coastal areas of southern Maine. Maliseet and Passamaquoddy: Maliseet (also Wolastoqiyik, Walastekwyk, Malecite), lived in the inland of upper Maine and middle New Brunswick along the St. John River. Principal villages: Meductic, Aukpaque. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Passamaquoddy (also Peskotomuhktati, Pestomuhkati), lived on the Passamaquoddy Bay coast and inland, between the St. John, St. Croix and Penobscot rivers, in present-day Maine and New Brunswick. Principal village: Machias. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Location The homeland of the Abenaki, which they call Ndakinna (Our Land), extended across most of what is now northern New England, southern Quebec, and the southern Canadian Maritimes. The Eastern Abenaki population was concentrated in portions of New Brunswick and Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains. The other major tribe, the Western Abenaki, lived in the Connecticut River valley in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The Missiquoi lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The Pennacook lived along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire. The maritime Abenaki lived around the St. Croix and Wolastoq (Saint John River) valleys near the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick. The English settlement of New England and frequent wars forced many Abenaki to retreat to Quebec. The Abenaki settled in the Sillery region of Quebec between 1676 and 1680, and subsequently, for about twenty years, lived on the banks of the Chaudière River near the falls, before settling in Odanak and Wôlinak in the early eighteenth century. In those days, the Abenaki practiced a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing, trapping, berry picking and on growing corn, beans, squash, potatoes and tobacco. They also produced baskets, made of ash and sweet grass, for picking wild berries, and boiled maple sap to make syrup. Basket weaving remains a traditional activity for members of both communities. During the Anglo-French wars, the Abenaki were allies of France, having been displaced from Ndakinna by immigrating English people. An anecdote from the period tells the story of a Maliseet war chief named Nescambuit or Assacumbuit, who killed more than 140 enemies of King Louis XIV of France and received the rank of knight. Not all Abenaki natives fought on the side of the French, however; many remained on their native lands in the northern colonies. Much of the trapping was done by the people and traded to the English colonists for durable goods. These contributions by Native American Abenaki peoples went largely unreported. Two tribal communities formed in Canada, one once known as Saint-Francois-du-lac near Pierreville, Quebec (now called Odanak, Abenaki for "coming home"), and the other near Bécancour (now known as Wôlinak) on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, directly across the river from Trois-Rivières. These two Abenaki reserves continue to grow and develop. Since the year 2000, the total Abenaki population (on and off reserve) has doubled to 2,101 members in 2011. Approximately 400 Abenaki reside on these two reserves, which cover a total area of less than . The unrecognized majority are off-reserve members, living in various cities and towns across Canada and the United States. There are about 3,200 Abenaki living in Vermont and New Hampshire, without reservations, chiefly around Lake Champlain. The remaining Abenaki people live in multi-racial towns and cities across Canada and the US, mainly in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and northern New England. Four Abenaki tribes are located in Vermont. On April 22, 2011, Vermont officially recognized two Abenaki tribes: the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe. On May 7, 2012, the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi and the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation received recognition by the State of Vermont. The Nulhegan are located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Brownington, and the Elnu Abenaki are located in southeastern Vermont with tribal headquarters in Jamaica, Vermont. The Elnu Abenaki tribe focuses mainly on carrying on the traditions of their ancestors through their children and teaching about their culture. The chief and political leader of the Nulhegan Band is Don Stevens. The Sokoki (the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi) are located along the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Swanton. Their traditional land is along the river, extending to its outlet at Lake Champlain. In December 2012, Vermont's Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe created a tribal forest in the town of Barton. This forest was established with assistance from the Vermont Sierra Club and the Vermont Land Trust. It contains a hunting camp and maple sugaring facilities that are administered cooperatively by the Nulhegan. The forest contains . The St Francis Missisquoi Tribe owns forest land in the town of Brunswick, centered around the Brunswick Springs. These springs are believed to be a sacred traditional religious site of the Abenaki. Together these Vermont forests are the only Abenaki-held lands outside of the existing reservations in Quebec and Maine. Language The Abenaki language is closely related to the Panawahpskek (Penobscot) language. Other neighboring Wabanaki tribes, the Pestomuhkati (Passamaquoddy), Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), and Miꞌkmaq, and other Eastern Algonquian languages share many linguistic similarities. It has come close to extinction as a spoken language. Tribal members are working to revive the Abenaki language at Odanak (means "in the village"), a First Nations Abenaki reserve near Pierreville, Quebec, and throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and New York state. The language is polysynthetic, meaning that a phrase or an entire sentence is expressed by a single word. For example, the word for "white man" awanoch is a combination of the words awani meaning "who" and uji meaning "from". Thus, the word for "white man" literally translates to "Who is this man and where does he come from?" History In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the Abenakis' neighbors, pre-contact Iroquois, were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples, including the Abenaki. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest. In 1614, Thomas Hunt captured 24 young Abenaki people and took them to England. During the European colonization of North America, the land occupied by the Abenaki was in the area between the new colonies of England in Massachusetts and the French in Quebec. Since no party agreed to territorial boundaries, there was regular conflict among them. The Abenaki were traditionally allied with the French; during the reign of Louis XIV, Chief Assacumbuit was designated a member of the French nobility for his service. Facing annihilation from English attacks and epidemics of new infectious diseases, the Abenaki started to emigrate to Quebec around 1669. The governor of New France allocated two seigneuries (large self-administered areas similar to feudal fiefs). The first was on the Saint Francis River and is now known as the Odanak Indian Reservation; the second was founded near Bécancour and is called the Wolinak Indian Reservation. Abenaki wars When the Wampanoag people under King Philip (Metacomet) fought the English colonists in New England in 1675 in King Philip's War, the Abenaki joined the Wampanoag. For three years they fought along the Maine frontier in the First Abenaki War. The Abenaki pushed back the line of white settlement through devastating raids on scattered farmhouses and small villages. The war was settled by a peace treaty in 1678, with the Wampanoag more than decimated and many Native survivors having been sold into slavery in Bermuda. During Queen Anne's War in 1702, the Abenaki were allied with the French; they raided numerous small English villages in Maine, from Wells to Casco, killing about 300 settlers over ten years. They also occasionally raided into Massachusetts, for instance in Groton and Deerfield in 1704. The raids stopped when the war ended. Some captives were adopted into the Mohawk and Abenaki tribes; older captives were generally ransomed, and the colonies carried on a brisk trade. The Third Abenaki War (1722–25), called Father Rale's War, erupted when the French Jesuit missionary Sébastien Rale (or Rasles, ~1657?-1724) encouraged the Abenaki to halt the spread of Yankee settlements. When the Massachusetts militia tried to seize Rale, the Abenaki raided the settlements at Brunswick, Arrowsick, and Merry-Meeting Bay. The Massachusetts government then declared war and bloody battles were fought at Norridgewock (1724), where Rale was killed, and at a daylong battle at the Indian village near present-day Fryeburg, Maine, on the upper Saco River (1725). Peace conferences at Boston and Casco Bay brought an end to the war. After Rale died the Abenaki moved to a settlement on the St. Francis River. The Abenaki from St. Francois continued to raid British settlements in their former homelands along the New England frontier during Father Le Loutre's War (see Northeast Coast Campaign (1750)) and the French and Indian War. Canada The development of tourism projects has allowed the Canadian Abenaki to develop a modern economy, while preserving their culture and traditions. For example, since 1960, the Odanak Historical Society has managed the first and one of the largest aboriginal museums in Quebec, a few miles from the Quebec-Montreal axis. Over 5,000 people visit the Abenaki Museum annually. Several Abenaki companies include: in Wôlinak, General Fiberglass Engineering employs a dozen natives, with annual sales exceeding C$3 million. Odanak is now active in transportation and distribution. Notable Abenaki from this area include the documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin (National Film Board of Canada). United States Federally Recognized Tribes The Penobscot Indian Nation, Passamaquoddy people, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians have been federally recognized as tribes in the United States. The Abenaki are a recognized First Nation within Canada. State Recognized Tribes The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, the Ko'Asek Abenaki Nation of the Koas, the Elnu Band of Abenaki, and the Abenaki Nation of the Missiquoi are all state-recognized tribes in the United States, all in the state of Vermont. The Abenaki are recognized as having minority status in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Recognition allows applicants to seek scholarship funds reserved for American Indians and to receive federal "native made" designation for the bands' arts and crafts. Vermont In 2006, the state of Vermont officially recognized the Abenaki as a people, but not a tribe. The state noted that many Abenaki had been assimilated, and only small remnants remained on reservations during and after the French and Indian War, later eugenics projects further decimated the Abenaki people of America through forced sterilization and questionable 'miscarriages' at birth. As noted above, facing annihilation, many Abenaki had begun emigrating to Canada, then under French control, around 1669. the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. This is largely due to the fact that Vermont Abenaki heavily distanced themselves from their Canadian brethren, causing them to fall away from their tribes. Because of this, it was believed for a long time that there were no more Abenaki in Vermont. However, scholarly sources and oral histories remind that due to the period of eugenics surveys in northern New England, many indigenous peoples changed their names and stated themselves to be white or non-native. This practice is known as paper genocide. There are also scholars who argue that Abenaki groups in the United States have existed continuously since colonization. These groups have organized, re-organized, separated, and sometimes relocated as they endured settler colonial encroachments on their land, war, eugenics, poverty and indenture, and discrimination. New Hampshire and minority recognition In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. In 2021, a bill was introduced to the New Hampshire legislature to allow New Hampshire communities to rename locations in the Abenaki language. If the bill is passed, the Commission on Native American affairs would be required to help towns choose suitable names. Culture There are a dozen variations of the name "Abenaki", such as Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies and others. The Abenaki were described in the Jesuit Relations as not cannibals, and as docile, ingenious, temperate in the use of liquor, and not profane. All Abenaki tribes lived a lifestyle similar to the Algonquian-speaking peoples of southern New England. They cultivated crops for food, and located their villages on or near fertile river floodplains. Other less major, but still important, parts of their diet included game and fish from hunting and fishing, and wild plants. They lived in scattered bands of extended families for most of the year. Each man had different hunting territories inherited through his father. Unlike the Iroquois, the Abenaki were patrilineal. Bands came together during the spring and summer at temporary villages near rivers, or somewhere along the seacoast for planting and fishing. These villages occasionally had to be fortified, depending on the alliances and enemies of other tribes or of Europeans near the village. Abenaki villages were quite small when compared to those of the Iroquois; the average number of people was about 100. Most Abenaki crafted dome-shaped, bark-covered wigwams for housing, though a few preferred oval-shaped long houses. During the winter, the Abenaki lived in small groups further inland. The homes there were bark-covered wigwams shaped in a way similar to the teepees of the Great Plains Indians. During the winter, the Abenaki lined the inside of their conical wigwams with bear and deer skins for warmth. The Abenaki also built long houses similar to those of the Iroquois. The Abenaki hold on to their traditions and ways of life in several ways. The Sokoki do so in the current constitution for their government. It has a chief, a council of elders, and methods and means for election to the council and chieftainship, as well as requirements for citizenship in the tribe. They also list many of the different traditions they uphold, such as the different dances they perform and what those dances mean. During several of these dances there is no photography allowed, out of respect for the culture. For several, there are instructions such as "All stand while it is sung" or "All Stand to Show Respect." Hair style and other marriage traditions Traditionally, Abenaki men kept their hair long and loose. When a man found a girlfriend, he would tie his hair. When he married, he would attach the hair of the scalp with a piece of leather and shave all but the ponytail. The modernized spiritual version has the man with a girlfriend tying his hair and braiding it. When he marries, he keeps all his hair in a braid, shaving only the side and back of the head. The spiritual meaning surrounding this cut is most importantly to indicate betrothal or fidelity as a married Abenaki man. In much the same way as the Christian marriage tradition, there is an (optional) exchange and blessing of wedding rings. These rings are the outward and visible sign of the unity of this couple. Changes in the hair style were symbolic of a complex courtship process. The man would give the woman a box made of a fine wood, which was decorated with the virtues of the woman; the woman would give a similar box to the man. Everyone in the tribe must agree to the marriage. They erect a pole planted in the earth, and if anyone disagrees, he strikes the pole. The disagreement must be resolved or the marriage does not happen. Gender, food, division of labor, and other cultural traits The Abenaki were a farming society that supplemented agriculture with hunting and gathering. Generally the men were the hunters. The women tended the fields and grew the crops. In their fields, they planted the crops in groups of "sisters". The three sisters were grown together: the stalk of corn supported the beans, and squash or pumpkins provided ground cover and reduced weeds. The men would hunt bears, deer, fish, and birds. The Abenaki were a patrilineal society, which was common among New England tribes. In this they differed from the six Iroquois tribes to the west in New York, and from many other North American Native tribes who had matrilineal societies. In those systems, women controlled property and hereditary leadership was passed through the women's line. Children born to a married couple belonged to the mother's clan, and her eldest brother was an important mentor, especially for boys. The biological father had a lesser role. Group decision-making was done by a consensus method. The idea is that every group (family, band, tribe, etc.) must have equal say, so each group would elect a spokesperson. Each smaller group would send the decision of the group to an impartial facilitator. If there was a disagreement, the facilitator would tell the groups to discuss again. In addition to the debates, there was a goal of total understanding for all members. If there was not total understanding, the debate would stop until there was understanding. When the tribal members debate issues, they consider the Three Truths: Peace: Is this preserved? Righteousness: Is it moral? Power: Does it preserve the integrity of the group? These truths guide all group deliberations, and the goal is to reach a consensus. If there is no consensus for change, they agree to keep the status quo. Storytelling Storytelling is a major part of Abenaki culture. It is used not only as entertainment but also as a teaching method. The Abenaki view stories as having lives of their own and being aware of how they are used. Stories were used as a means of teaching children behavior. Children were not to be mistreated, and so instead of punishing the child, they would be told a story. One of the stories is of Azban the Raccoon. This is a story about a proud raccoon that challenges a waterfall to a shouting contest. When the waterfall does not respond, Azban dives into the waterfall to try to outshout it; he is swept away because of his pride. This story would be used to show a child the pitfalls of pride. Mythology Ethnobotany The Abenaki smash the flowers and leaves of Ranunculus acris and sniff them for headaches. They consume the fruit of Vaccinium myrtilloides as part of their traditional diet. They also use the fruit and the grains of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides for food. Many other plants are used for various healing and treatment modalities, including for the skin, as a disinfectant, as a cure-all, as a respiratory aid, for colds, coughs, fevers, grippe, gas, blood strengthening, headaches and other pains, rheumatism, demulcent, nasal inflammation, anthelmintic, for the eyes, abortifacent, for the bones, antihemorrhagic, as a sedative, anaphrodisiac, swellings, urinary aid, gastrointestinal aid, as a hemostat, pediatric aid (such as for teething), and other unspecified or general uses. They use Hierochloe odorata, Apocynum, Betula papyrifera, Fraxinus americana, Fraxinus nigra, Laportea canadensis, a variety of Salix species, and Tilia americana var. americana for making baskets, canoes, snowshoes, and whistles. They use Hierochloe odorata and willow to make containers, Betula papyrifera to create containers, moose calls and other utilitarian pieces, and the bark of Cornus sericea ssp. sericea for smoking. They also use Acer rubrum, Acornus calamus, an unknown Amelanchier species, Caltha palustris, Cardamine diphylla, Cornus canadensis, an unknown Crataegus species, Fragaria virginiana, Gaultheria procumbens, Osmunda cinnamomea, Phaseolus vulgaris, Photinia melanocarpa, Prunus virginiana, Rubus idaeus and another unknown Rubus species, Solanum tuberosum, Spiraea alba var. latifolia, Vaccinium angustifolium, and Zea mays as a tea, soup, jelly, sweetener, condiment, snack, or meal. The Abenaki use the gum of Abies balsamea for slight itches and as an antiseptic ointment. They stuff the leaves, needles and wood into pillows as a panacea. Population and epidemics Before the Abenaki, except the Pennacook and Miꞌkmaq, had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contacts with European fishermen resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 16th century. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English settlement of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75%, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. The more isolated Western Abenaki suffered fewer fatalities, losing about half of their original population of 10,000. The new diseases continued to strike in epidemics, starting with smallpox in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with influenza passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and diphtheria came through 10 years later. Smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with measles, 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758. The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and King Philip's War. Because of this, descendants of nearly every southern New England Algonquian tribe can be found among the Abenaki people. A century later, fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remained after the American Revolution. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 1,549 people identified themselves as Abenaki. So did 2,544 people in the 2000 U.S census, with 6,012 people claiming Abenaki heritage. In 1991 Canadian Abenaki numbered 945; by 2006 they numbered 2,164. Fiction Lydia Maria Child wrote of the Abenaki in her short story, "The Church in the Wilderness" (1828). Several Abenaki characters and much about their 18th-century culture are featured in the Kenneth Roberts novel Arundel (1930). The film Northwest Passage (1940) is based on a novel of the same name by Roberts. The Abenaki are featured in Charles McCarry's historical novel Bride of the Wilderness (1988), and James Archibald Houston's novel Ghost Fox (1977), both of which are set in the eighteenth century; and in Jodi Picoult's Second Glance (2003) and Lone Wolf (2012) novels, set in the contemporary world. Books for younger readers both have historical settings: Joseph Bruchac's The Arrow Over the Door (1998) (grades 4–6) is set in 1777; and Beth Kanell's young adult novel, The Darkness Under the Water (2008), concerns a young Abenaki-French Canadian girl during the time of the Vermont Eugenics Project, 1931–1936. The first sentence in Norman Mailer's novel Harlot's Ghost makes reference to the Abenaki: "On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago." Non-fiction Letters and other non-fiction writing can be found in the anthology Dawnland Voices. Selections include letters from leader of the early praying town, Wamesit in Massachusetts Samuel Numphow, Sagamore Kancamagus, and writings on the Abenaki language by former chief of the reserve at Odanak in Quebec, Joseph Laurent as well as many others. Accounts of life with the Abenaki can be found in the captivity narratives written by women taken captive by the Abenaki from the early New England settlements: Mary Rowlandson (1682), Hannah Duston (1702); Elizabeth Hanson (1728); Susannah Willard Johnson (1754); and Jemima Howe (1792). Maps Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south): Notable people Jesse Bruchac, author and linguist Joseph Bruchac, author Indian Joe, a scout around the time of the American Revolutionary War Billy Kidd, former alpine ski racer Joseph Laurent, chief and author Henry Lorne Masta, chief and author Donna L. Moody, repatriation activist Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker and documentarian Annick Obonsawin, voice actress and singer Donald E. Pelotte, Roman Catholic Bishop of Gallup (New Mexico and Arizona) Christine Sioui-Wawanoloath, writer and artist living in Quebec Elijah Tahamont, silent film actor Dark Cloud Alexis Wawanoloath, member of National Assembly of Quebec Footnotes Bibliography Aubery, Joseph Fr. and Stephen Laurent, 1995. Father Aubery's French Abenaki Dictionary: English translation. S. Laurent (Translator). Chisholm Bros. Publishing Baker, C. Alice, 1897. True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada during the Old French and Indian Wars. Press of E.A. Hall & Company, Greenfield, Massachusetts Charland, Thomas-M. (O.P.), 1964. Les Abenakis D'Odanak: Histoire des Abénakis D'Odanak (1675–1937). Les Éditions du Lévrier, Montreal, QC Coleman, Emma Lewis. New England Captives Carried to Canada: Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars, Heritage Books, 1989 (reprint 1925). Day, Gordon, 1981. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, National Museum Of Man Mercury Series , Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 71 . Reprinted (paperback) Sept. 2006: Vancouver: Global Language Press], ; Dec. 2009 (hardcover): Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series; and April 2010 (paperback): Nabu Press. Masta, Henry Lorne, 1932. Abenaki Legends, Grammar and Place Names. Victoriaville, PQ: La Voix Des Bois-Franes. Reprinted 2008: Toronto: Global Language Press, Maurault, Joseph-Anselme (Abbot), 1866. Histoire des Abénakis, depuis 1605 jusqu'à nos jours. Published at L'Atelier typographique de la "Gazette de Sorel", QC Moondancer and Strong Woman, 2007. A Cultural History of the Native Peoples of Southern New England: Voices from Past and Present. Boulder, CO: Bauu Press, Further reading Other grammar books and dictionaries include: Dr. Gordon M. Day's two-volume Western Abenaki Dictionary (August 1994), Paperback: 616 pages, Publisher: Canadian Museum Of Civilization Chief Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names (1932), Odanak, Quebec, reprinted in 2008 by Global Language Press Joseph Aubery's Father Aubery's French-Abenaki Dictionary (1700), translated into English-Abenaki by Stephen Laurent, and published in hardcover (525 pp.) by Chisholm Bros. Publishing. External links Missisquoi Abenaki Tribal Council Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe Elnu Tribe of the Abenaki Abenakis of Odanak Council "Welcome to the Abenaki Language" Native Languages of the Americas: Abnaki-Penobscot (Abenaki Language) Abenaki language - recordings Western Abenaki Dictionary and Radio Online Gordan M. Day, "The Identity of the St. Francis Indians" Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples First Nations in Atlantic Canada Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands Native American history of Maine Native American tribes in Maine Native American tribes in Vermont Native American tribes in New Hampshire First Nations in Quebec State recognized Native American tribes Wabanaki Confederacy	true	[ "What Really Happened to the Class of '65? is an American anthology drama television series produced and aired in 1977–1978, created by Tony Bill and written by Walter Koenig The series was inspired by the bestselling book What Really Happened to the Class of '65? by David Wallechinsky and Michael Medved. It was produced by George Eckstein.\n\nSummary \nThe drama of the show revolved around the main character, played by Tony Bill, who had graduated from the class of 1965 in Bret Harte High School, and who has now returned as a teacher to the school. The show would begin with his character opening up the old school photo book, flicking to a photo, and pondering what had happened to that particular student. The show would then show the story of that student, with Bill narrating.\n\nThe show featured music from the era, and was described as \"a cross breed between Happy Days and Peyton Place\" The show debuted at 10pm on NBC on December 8, 1977.\n\nGrant High School in Van Nuys was used as a filming location for the series.\n\nCast \nTony Bill played the main character, Sam Ashley. The rest of the cast of the show featured many of the mainstay actors of the 1970s, including Cliff De Young, Leslie Nielsen, John Ritter, Annette O'Toole, Meredith Baxter Birney, John Rubinstein, Jessica Walter, and Paul Burke.\n\nEpisode list\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n What Really Happened to the Class of '65? at The Classic TV Archive\n\n1977 American television series debuts\n1978 American television series endings\n1970s American anthology television series\n1970s American drama television series\n1970s American high school television series\nNBC original programming\nTelevision series based on books\nTelevision shows set in Los Angeles", "Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books" ]
[ "Abenaki", "New Hampshire and minority recognition", "what happened in new hampshire?", "the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group.", "Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?", "Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims", "what happened to the bill?", "This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature." ]	C_ad08de4e979a49e88d487e14488a9c34_0	what was the outcome?	4	What was the outcome of the Abenaki's bill?	Abenaki	In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	The Abenaki (Abnaki, Abinaki, Alnôbak) are an indigenous ethnic group in North America, officially recognised in the United States as a Native American tribe and in Canada as a First Nations. They are one of the Algonquian-speaking peoples of northeastern North America. The Abenaki originated in a region called Wabanahkik in the Eastern Algonquian languages (meaning "Dawn Land"), a territory now including parts of Quebec and the Maritimes of Canada and northern sections of the New England region of the United States. The Abenaki are one of the five members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. "Abenaki" is a linguistic and geographic grouping; historically, there was no strong central authority – the Abenaki were composed of numerous smaller bands and tribes who shared many cultural traits. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare. Names The word Abenaki and its syncope, Abnaki, are both derived from Wabanaki, or Wôbanakiak, meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language. While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy. Wôbanakiak is derived from wôban ("dawn" or "east") and aki ("land") (compare Proto-Algonquian wa·pan and axkyi) — the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England and the Maritimes. It is sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the area—Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Miꞌkmaq—as a single group. The Abenaki people also call themselves Alnôbak, meaning "Real People" (c.f., Lenape language: Lenapek) and by the autonym Alnanbal, meaning "men". Historically, ethnologists have classified the Abenaki by geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki. Within these groups are the Abenaki bands: Western Abenaki Arsigantegok (also Arrasaguntacook, Ersegontegog, Assagunticook, Anasaguntacook), lived along the St. Francis River in Québec. Principal village: St. Francis (Odanak). The people were referred to as St. Francis River Abenakis, and this term gradually was applied to all Western Abenaki. Cowasuck (also Cohass, Cohasiac, Koasek, Koasek, Coos – "People of the Pines"), lived in the upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal village: Cowass, near Newbury, Vermont. Missiquoi (also Masipskwoik, Mazipskikskoik, Missique, Misiskuoi, Missisco, Missiassik – "People of the Flint"), also known as the Sokoki. They lived in the Missisquoi Valley, from Lake Champlain to the headwaters. Principal village around Swanton, Vermont. Sokoki (also Sokwaki, Squakheag, Socoquis, Sokoquius, Zooquagese, Soquachjck, Onejagese – "People Who Separated"), lived in the Middle and Upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal villages: Squakheag, Northfield, Massachusetts, and Fort Hill. Pennacook (also Penacook, Penikoke, Openango), lived in the Merrimack Valley, therefore sometimes called Merrimack. Principal village Penacook, New Hampshire. The Pennacook were once a large confederacy who were politically distinct and competitive with their northern Abenaki neighbors. Smaller tribes: Amoskeay Cocheco Nashua Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Often classed as Eastern Abenaki. Pemigewasset Piscataqua Souhegan Winnipesaukee (also Winnibisauga, Wioninebeseck, Winninebesakik – "region of the land around lakes"), lived along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Wabanaki Nation Odanak (also known as Pierreville, MRC Nicolet-Yamaska), lived southwest of Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the St. Francois River and Magog River. Wôlinak (also Becancour, MRC Becancour), lived around Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the Bécancour River. Eastern Abenaki Androscoggin (also Alessikantekw, Arosaguntacock, Amariscoggin), lived in the Androscoggin Valley and along the St. Francis River, therefore often called St. Francis River Abenaki. Kennebec (also Kinipekw, Kennebeck, Caniba, later known as Norridgewock), lived in the Kennebec River Valley in northern Maine. Principal village: Norridgewock (Naridgewalk, Neridgewok, Noronjawoke); other villages: Amaseconti (Amesokanti, Anmissoukanti), Kennebec, and Sagadahoc. Penobscot (also Panawahpskek, Pamnaouamske, Pentagouet), lived in the Penobscot Valley. Principal villages: Penobscot (Pentagouet), now Indian Island, Old Town, Maine; other villages: Agguncia, Asnela, Catawamtek, Kenduskeag, Mattawamkeag, Meecombe, Negas, Olamon, Passadumkeag, Precaute, Segocket, and Wabigganus. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Pequawket (also Pigwacket, Pequaki), lived along the Saco River and in the White Mountains. Principal village Pigwacket was located on the upper Saco River near present-day Fryeburg, Maine. Occupied an intermediate location, therefore sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Smaller tribes: Apikwahki Amaseconti, lived between the upper Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers in western Maine. Kwupahag (also Kwapahag) Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Rocameca, lived along the upper Androscoggin River, near Canton, Maine. Wawinak (also Ouanwinak, Sheepscot, Wawenock, Wawnock, Wewenoc), lived in the coastal areas of southern Maine. Maliseet and Passamaquoddy: Maliseet (also Wolastoqiyik, Walastekwyk, Malecite), lived in the inland of upper Maine and middle New Brunswick along the St. John River. Principal villages: Meductic, Aukpaque. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Passamaquoddy (also Peskotomuhktati, Pestomuhkati), lived on the Passamaquoddy Bay coast and inland, between the St. John, St. Croix and Penobscot rivers, in present-day Maine and New Brunswick. Principal village: Machias. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Location The homeland of the Abenaki, which they call Ndakinna (Our Land), extended across most of what is now northern New England, southern Quebec, and the southern Canadian Maritimes. The Eastern Abenaki population was concentrated in portions of New Brunswick and Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains. The other major tribe, the Western Abenaki, lived in the Connecticut River valley in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The Missiquoi lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The Pennacook lived along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire. The maritime Abenaki lived around the St. Croix and Wolastoq (Saint John River) valleys near the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick. The English settlement of New England and frequent wars forced many Abenaki to retreat to Quebec. The Abenaki settled in the Sillery region of Quebec between 1676 and 1680, and subsequently, for about twenty years, lived on the banks of the Chaudière River near the falls, before settling in Odanak and Wôlinak in the early eighteenth century. In those days, the Abenaki practiced a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing, trapping, berry picking and on growing corn, beans, squash, potatoes and tobacco. They also produced baskets, made of ash and sweet grass, for picking wild berries, and boiled maple sap to make syrup. Basket weaving remains a traditional activity for members of both communities. During the Anglo-French wars, the Abenaki were allies of France, having been displaced from Ndakinna by immigrating English people. An anecdote from the period tells the story of a Maliseet war chief named Nescambuit or Assacumbuit, who killed more than 140 enemies of King Louis XIV of France and received the rank of knight. Not all Abenaki natives fought on the side of the French, however; many remained on their native lands in the northern colonies. Much of the trapping was done by the people and traded to the English colonists for durable goods. These contributions by Native American Abenaki peoples went largely unreported. Two tribal communities formed in Canada, one once known as Saint-Francois-du-lac near Pierreville, Quebec (now called Odanak, Abenaki for "coming home"), and the other near Bécancour (now known as Wôlinak) on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, directly across the river from Trois-Rivières. These two Abenaki reserves continue to grow and develop. Since the year 2000, the total Abenaki population (on and off reserve) has doubled to 2,101 members in 2011. Approximately 400 Abenaki reside on these two reserves, which cover a total area of less than . The unrecognized majority are off-reserve members, living in various cities and towns across Canada and the United States. There are about 3,200 Abenaki living in Vermont and New Hampshire, without reservations, chiefly around Lake Champlain. The remaining Abenaki people live in multi-racial towns and cities across Canada and the US, mainly in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and northern New England. Four Abenaki tribes are located in Vermont. On April 22, 2011, Vermont officially recognized two Abenaki tribes: the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe. On May 7, 2012, the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi and the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation received recognition by the State of Vermont. The Nulhegan are located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Brownington, and the Elnu Abenaki are located in southeastern Vermont with tribal headquarters in Jamaica, Vermont. The Elnu Abenaki tribe focuses mainly on carrying on the traditions of their ancestors through their children and teaching about their culture. The chief and political leader of the Nulhegan Band is Don Stevens. The Sokoki (the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi) are located along the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Swanton. Their traditional land is along the river, extending to its outlet at Lake Champlain. In December 2012, Vermont's Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe created a tribal forest in the town of Barton. This forest was established with assistance from the Vermont Sierra Club and the Vermont Land Trust. It contains a hunting camp and maple sugaring facilities that are administered cooperatively by the Nulhegan. The forest contains . The St Francis Missisquoi Tribe owns forest land in the town of Brunswick, centered around the Brunswick Springs. These springs are believed to be a sacred traditional religious site of the Abenaki. Together these Vermont forests are the only Abenaki-held lands outside of the existing reservations in Quebec and Maine. Language The Abenaki language is closely related to the Panawahpskek (Penobscot) language. Other neighboring Wabanaki tribes, the Pestomuhkati (Passamaquoddy), Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), and Miꞌkmaq, and other Eastern Algonquian languages share many linguistic similarities. It has come close to extinction as a spoken language. Tribal members are working to revive the Abenaki language at Odanak (means "in the village"), a First Nations Abenaki reserve near Pierreville, Quebec, and throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and New York state. The language is polysynthetic, meaning that a phrase or an entire sentence is expressed by a single word. For example, the word for "white man" awanoch is a combination of the words awani meaning "who" and uji meaning "from". Thus, the word for "white man" literally translates to "Who is this man and where does he come from?" History In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the Abenakis' neighbors, pre-contact Iroquois, were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples, including the Abenaki. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest. In 1614, Thomas Hunt captured 24 young Abenaki people and took them to England. During the European colonization of North America, the land occupied by the Abenaki was in the area between the new colonies of England in Massachusetts and the French in Quebec. Since no party agreed to territorial boundaries, there was regular conflict among them. The Abenaki were traditionally allied with the French; during the reign of Louis XIV, Chief Assacumbuit was designated a member of the French nobility for his service. Facing annihilation from English attacks and epidemics of new infectious diseases, the Abenaki started to emigrate to Quebec around 1669. The governor of New France allocated two seigneuries (large self-administered areas similar to feudal fiefs). The first was on the Saint Francis River and is now known as the Odanak Indian Reservation; the second was founded near Bécancour and is called the Wolinak Indian Reservation. Abenaki wars When the Wampanoag people under King Philip (Metacomet) fought the English colonists in New England in 1675 in King Philip's War, the Abenaki joined the Wampanoag. For three years they fought along the Maine frontier in the First Abenaki War. The Abenaki pushed back the line of white settlement through devastating raids on scattered farmhouses and small villages. The war was settled by a peace treaty in 1678, with the Wampanoag more than decimated and many Native survivors having been sold into slavery in Bermuda. During Queen Anne's War in 1702, the Abenaki were allied with the French; they raided numerous small English villages in Maine, from Wells to Casco, killing about 300 settlers over ten years. They also occasionally raided into Massachusetts, for instance in Groton and Deerfield in 1704. The raids stopped when the war ended. Some captives were adopted into the Mohawk and Abenaki tribes; older captives were generally ransomed, and the colonies carried on a brisk trade. The Third Abenaki War (1722–25), called Father Rale's War, erupted when the French Jesuit missionary Sébastien Rale (or Rasles, ~1657?-1724) encouraged the Abenaki to halt the spread of Yankee settlements. When the Massachusetts militia tried to seize Rale, the Abenaki raided the settlements at Brunswick, Arrowsick, and Merry-Meeting Bay. The Massachusetts government then declared war and bloody battles were fought at Norridgewock (1724), where Rale was killed, and at a daylong battle at the Indian village near present-day Fryeburg, Maine, on the upper Saco River (1725). Peace conferences at Boston and Casco Bay brought an end to the war. After Rale died the Abenaki moved to a settlement on the St. Francis River. The Abenaki from St. Francois continued to raid British settlements in their former homelands along the New England frontier during Father Le Loutre's War (see Northeast Coast Campaign (1750)) and the French and Indian War. Canada The development of tourism projects has allowed the Canadian Abenaki to develop a modern economy, while preserving their culture and traditions. For example, since 1960, the Odanak Historical Society has managed the first and one of the largest aboriginal museums in Quebec, a few miles from the Quebec-Montreal axis. Over 5,000 people visit the Abenaki Museum annually. Several Abenaki companies include: in Wôlinak, General Fiberglass Engineering employs a dozen natives, with annual sales exceeding C$3 million. Odanak is now active in transportation and distribution. Notable Abenaki from this area include the documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin (National Film Board of Canada). United States Federally Recognized Tribes The Penobscot Indian Nation, Passamaquoddy people, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians have been federally recognized as tribes in the United States. The Abenaki are a recognized First Nation within Canada. State Recognized Tribes The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, the Ko'Asek Abenaki Nation of the Koas, the Elnu Band of Abenaki, and the Abenaki Nation of the Missiquoi are all state-recognized tribes in the United States, all in the state of Vermont. The Abenaki are recognized as having minority status in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Recognition allows applicants to seek scholarship funds reserved for American Indians and to receive federal "native made" designation for the bands' arts and crafts. Vermont In 2006, the state of Vermont officially recognized the Abenaki as a people, but not a tribe. The state noted that many Abenaki had been assimilated, and only small remnants remained on reservations during and after the French and Indian War, later eugenics projects further decimated the Abenaki people of America through forced sterilization and questionable 'miscarriages' at birth. As noted above, facing annihilation, many Abenaki had begun emigrating to Canada, then under French control, around 1669. the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. This is largely due to the fact that Vermont Abenaki heavily distanced themselves from their Canadian brethren, causing them to fall away from their tribes. Because of this, it was believed for a long time that there were no more Abenaki in Vermont. However, scholarly sources and oral histories remind that due to the period of eugenics surveys in northern New England, many indigenous peoples changed their names and stated themselves to be white or non-native. This practice is known as paper genocide. There are also scholars who argue that Abenaki groups in the United States have existed continuously since colonization. These groups have organized, re-organized, separated, and sometimes relocated as they endured settler colonial encroachments on their land, war, eugenics, poverty and indenture, and discrimination. New Hampshire and minority recognition In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. In 2021, a bill was introduced to the New Hampshire legislature to allow New Hampshire communities to rename locations in the Abenaki language. If the bill is passed, the Commission on Native American affairs would be required to help towns choose suitable names. Culture There are a dozen variations of the name "Abenaki", such as Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies and others. The Abenaki were described in the Jesuit Relations as not cannibals, and as docile, ingenious, temperate in the use of liquor, and not profane. All Abenaki tribes lived a lifestyle similar to the Algonquian-speaking peoples of southern New England. They cultivated crops for food, and located their villages on or near fertile river floodplains. Other less major, but still important, parts of their diet included game and fish from hunting and fishing, and wild plants. They lived in scattered bands of extended families for most of the year. Each man had different hunting territories inherited through his father. Unlike the Iroquois, the Abenaki were patrilineal. Bands came together during the spring and summer at temporary villages near rivers, or somewhere along the seacoast for planting and fishing. These villages occasionally had to be fortified, depending on the alliances and enemies of other tribes or of Europeans near the village. Abenaki villages were quite small when compared to those of the Iroquois; the average number of people was about 100. Most Abenaki crafted dome-shaped, bark-covered wigwams for housing, though a few preferred oval-shaped long houses. During the winter, the Abenaki lived in small groups further inland. The homes there were bark-covered wigwams shaped in a way similar to the teepees of the Great Plains Indians. During the winter, the Abenaki lined the inside of their conical wigwams with bear and deer skins for warmth. The Abenaki also built long houses similar to those of the Iroquois. The Abenaki hold on to their traditions and ways of life in several ways. The Sokoki do so in the current constitution for their government. It has a chief, a council of elders, and methods and means for election to the council and chieftainship, as well as requirements for citizenship in the tribe. They also list many of the different traditions they uphold, such as the different dances they perform and what those dances mean. During several of these dances there is no photography allowed, out of respect for the culture. For several, there are instructions such as "All stand while it is sung" or "All Stand to Show Respect." Hair style and other marriage traditions Traditionally, Abenaki men kept their hair long and loose. When a man found a girlfriend, he would tie his hair. When he married, he would attach the hair of the scalp with a piece of leather and shave all but the ponytail. The modernized spiritual version has the man with a girlfriend tying his hair and braiding it. When he marries, he keeps all his hair in a braid, shaving only the side and back of the head. The spiritual meaning surrounding this cut is most importantly to indicate betrothal or fidelity as a married Abenaki man. In much the same way as the Christian marriage tradition, there is an (optional) exchange and blessing of wedding rings. These rings are the outward and visible sign of the unity of this couple. Changes in the hair style were symbolic of a complex courtship process. The man would give the woman a box made of a fine wood, which was decorated with the virtues of the woman; the woman would give a similar box to the man. Everyone in the tribe must agree to the marriage. They erect a pole planted in the earth, and if anyone disagrees, he strikes the pole. The disagreement must be resolved or the marriage does not happen. Gender, food, division of labor, and other cultural traits The Abenaki were a farming society that supplemented agriculture with hunting and gathering. Generally the men were the hunters. The women tended the fields and grew the crops. In their fields, they planted the crops in groups of "sisters". The three sisters were grown together: the stalk of corn supported the beans, and squash or pumpkins provided ground cover and reduced weeds. The men would hunt bears, deer, fish, and birds. The Abenaki were a patrilineal society, which was common among New England tribes. In this they differed from the six Iroquois tribes to the west in New York, and from many other North American Native tribes who had matrilineal societies. In those systems, women controlled property and hereditary leadership was passed through the women's line. Children born to a married couple belonged to the mother's clan, and her eldest brother was an important mentor, especially for boys. The biological father had a lesser role. Group decision-making was done by a consensus method. The idea is that every group (family, band, tribe, etc.) must have equal say, so each group would elect a spokesperson. Each smaller group would send the decision of the group to an impartial facilitator. If there was a disagreement, the facilitator would tell the groups to discuss again. In addition to the debates, there was a goal of total understanding for all members. If there was not total understanding, the debate would stop until there was understanding. When the tribal members debate issues, they consider the Three Truths: Peace: Is this preserved? Righteousness: Is it moral? Power: Does it preserve the integrity of the group? These truths guide all group deliberations, and the goal is to reach a consensus. If there is no consensus for change, they agree to keep the status quo. Storytelling Storytelling is a major part of Abenaki culture. It is used not only as entertainment but also as a teaching method. The Abenaki view stories as having lives of their own and being aware of how they are used. Stories were used as a means of teaching children behavior. Children were not to be mistreated, and so instead of punishing the child, they would be told a story. One of the stories is of Azban the Raccoon. This is a story about a proud raccoon that challenges a waterfall to a shouting contest. When the waterfall does not respond, Azban dives into the waterfall to try to outshout it; he is swept away because of his pride. This story would be used to show a child the pitfalls of pride. Mythology Ethnobotany The Abenaki smash the flowers and leaves of Ranunculus acris and sniff them for headaches. They consume the fruit of Vaccinium myrtilloides as part of their traditional diet. They also use the fruit and the grains of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides for food. Many other plants are used for various healing and treatment modalities, including for the skin, as a disinfectant, as a cure-all, as a respiratory aid, for colds, coughs, fevers, grippe, gas, blood strengthening, headaches and other pains, rheumatism, demulcent, nasal inflammation, anthelmintic, for the eyes, abortifacent, for the bones, antihemorrhagic, as a sedative, anaphrodisiac, swellings, urinary aid, gastrointestinal aid, as a hemostat, pediatric aid (such as for teething), and other unspecified or general uses. They use Hierochloe odorata, Apocynum, Betula papyrifera, Fraxinus americana, Fraxinus nigra, Laportea canadensis, a variety of Salix species, and Tilia americana var. americana for making baskets, canoes, snowshoes, and whistles. They use Hierochloe odorata and willow to make containers, Betula papyrifera to create containers, moose calls and other utilitarian pieces, and the bark of Cornus sericea ssp. sericea for smoking. They also use Acer rubrum, Acornus calamus, an unknown Amelanchier species, Caltha palustris, Cardamine diphylla, Cornus canadensis, an unknown Crataegus species, Fragaria virginiana, Gaultheria procumbens, Osmunda cinnamomea, Phaseolus vulgaris, Photinia melanocarpa, Prunus virginiana, Rubus idaeus and another unknown Rubus species, Solanum tuberosum, Spiraea alba var. latifolia, Vaccinium angustifolium, and Zea mays as a tea, soup, jelly, sweetener, condiment, snack, or meal. The Abenaki use the gum of Abies balsamea for slight itches and as an antiseptic ointment. They stuff the leaves, needles and wood into pillows as a panacea. Population and epidemics Before the Abenaki, except the Pennacook and Miꞌkmaq, had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contacts with European fishermen resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 16th century. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English settlement of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75%, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. The more isolated Western Abenaki suffered fewer fatalities, losing about half of their original population of 10,000. The new diseases continued to strike in epidemics, starting with smallpox in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with influenza passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and diphtheria came through 10 years later. Smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with measles, 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758. The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and King Philip's War. Because of this, descendants of nearly every southern New England Algonquian tribe can be found among the Abenaki people. A century later, fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remained after the American Revolution. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 1,549 people identified themselves as Abenaki. So did 2,544 people in the 2000 U.S census, with 6,012 people claiming Abenaki heritage. In 1991 Canadian Abenaki numbered 945; by 2006 they numbered 2,164. Fiction Lydia Maria Child wrote of the Abenaki in her short story, "The Church in the Wilderness" (1828). Several Abenaki characters and much about their 18th-century culture are featured in the Kenneth Roberts novel Arundel (1930). The film Northwest Passage (1940) is based on a novel of the same name by Roberts. The Abenaki are featured in Charles McCarry's historical novel Bride of the Wilderness (1988), and James Archibald Houston's novel Ghost Fox (1977), both of which are set in the eighteenth century; and in Jodi Picoult's Second Glance (2003) and Lone Wolf (2012) novels, set in the contemporary world. Books for younger readers both have historical settings: Joseph Bruchac's The Arrow Over the Door (1998) (grades 4–6) is set in 1777; and Beth Kanell's young adult novel, The Darkness Under the Water (2008), concerns a young Abenaki-French Canadian girl during the time of the Vermont Eugenics Project, 1931–1936. The first sentence in Norman Mailer's novel Harlot's Ghost makes reference to the Abenaki: "On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago." Non-fiction Letters and other non-fiction writing can be found in the anthology Dawnland Voices. Selections include letters from leader of the early praying town, Wamesit in Massachusetts Samuel Numphow, Sagamore Kancamagus, and writings on the Abenaki language by former chief of the reserve at Odanak in Quebec, Joseph Laurent as well as many others. Accounts of life with the Abenaki can be found in the captivity narratives written by women taken captive by the Abenaki from the early New England settlements: Mary Rowlandson (1682), Hannah Duston (1702); Elizabeth Hanson (1728); Susannah Willard Johnson (1754); and Jemima Howe (1792). Maps Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south): Notable people Jesse Bruchac, author and linguist Joseph Bruchac, author Indian Joe, a scout around the time of the American Revolutionary War Billy Kidd, former alpine ski racer Joseph Laurent, chief and author Henry Lorne Masta, chief and author Donna L. Moody, repatriation activist Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker and documentarian Annick Obonsawin, voice actress and singer Donald E. Pelotte, Roman Catholic Bishop of Gallup (New Mexico and Arizona) Christine Sioui-Wawanoloath, writer and artist living in Quebec Elijah Tahamont, silent film actor Dark Cloud Alexis Wawanoloath, member of National Assembly of Quebec Footnotes Bibliography Aubery, Joseph Fr. and Stephen Laurent, 1995. Father Aubery's French Abenaki Dictionary: English translation. S. Laurent (Translator). Chisholm Bros. Publishing Baker, C. Alice, 1897. True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada during the Old French and Indian Wars. Press of E.A. Hall & Company, Greenfield, Massachusetts Charland, Thomas-M. (O.P.), 1964. Les Abenakis D'Odanak: Histoire des Abénakis D'Odanak (1675–1937). Les Éditions du Lévrier, Montreal, QC Coleman, Emma Lewis. New England Captives Carried to Canada: Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars, Heritage Books, 1989 (reprint 1925). Day, Gordon, 1981. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, National Museum Of Man Mercury Series , Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 71 . Reprinted (paperback) Sept. 2006: Vancouver: Global Language Press], ; Dec. 2009 (hardcover): Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series; and April 2010 (paperback): Nabu Press. Masta, Henry Lorne, 1932. Abenaki Legends, Grammar and Place Names. Victoriaville, PQ: La Voix Des Bois-Franes. Reprinted 2008: Toronto: Global Language Press, Maurault, Joseph-Anselme (Abbot), 1866. Histoire des Abénakis, depuis 1605 jusqu'à nos jours. Published at L'Atelier typographique de la "Gazette de Sorel", QC Moondancer and Strong Woman, 2007. A Cultural History of the Native Peoples of Southern New England: Voices from Past and Present. Boulder, CO: Bauu Press, Further reading Other grammar books and dictionaries include: Dr. Gordon M. Day's two-volume Western Abenaki Dictionary (August 1994), Paperback: 616 pages, Publisher: Canadian Museum Of Civilization Chief Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names (1932), Odanak, Quebec, reprinted in 2008 by Global Language Press Joseph Aubery's Father Aubery's French-Abenaki Dictionary (1700), translated into English-Abenaki by Stephen Laurent, and published in hardcover (525 pp.) by Chisholm Bros. Publishing. External links Missisquoi Abenaki Tribal Council Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe Elnu Tribe of the Abenaki Abenakis of Odanak Council "Welcome to the Abenaki Language" Native Languages of the Americas: Abnaki-Penobscot (Abenaki Language) Abenaki language - recordings Western Abenaki Dictionary and Radio Online Gordan M. Day, "The Identity of the St. Francis Indians" Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples First Nations in Atlantic Canada Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands Native American history of Maine Native American tribes in Maine Native American tribes in Vermont Native American tribes in New Hampshire First Nations in Quebec State recognized Native American tribes Wabanaki Confederacy	false	[ "The outcome bias is an error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome of that decision is already known. Specifically, the outcome effect occurs when the same \"behavior produce[s] more ethical condemnation when it happen[s] to produce bad rather than good outcome, even if the outcome is determined by chance.\"\n\nWhile similar to the hindsight bias, the two phenomena are markedly different. Hindsight bias focuses on memory distortion to favor the actor, while the outcome bias focuses exclusively on weighting the past outcome heavier than other pieces of information in deciding if a past decision was correct.\n\nOverview\nOne will often judge a past decision by its ultimate outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made, given what was known at that time. This is an error because no decision-maker ever knows whether or not a calculated risk will turn out for the best. The actual outcome of the decision will often be determined by chance, with some risks working out and others not. Individuals whose judgments are influenced by outcome bias are seemingly holding decision-makers responsible for events beyond their control.\n\nBaron and Hershey (1988) presented subjects with hypothetical situations in order to test this.\nOne such example involved a surgeon deciding whether or not to do a risky surgery on a patient. The surgery had a known probability of success. Subjects were presented with either a good or bad outcome (in this case living or dying), and asked to rate the quality of the surgeon's pre-operation decision. Those presented with bad outcomes rated the decision worse than those who had good outcomes. \"The ends justify the means\" is an often used aphorism to express the Outcome effect when the outcome is desirable.\n\nThe reason why an individual makes this mistake is that he or she will incorporate currently available information when evaluating a past decision. To avoid the influence of outcome bias, one should evaluate a decision by ignoring information collected after the fact and focusing on what the right answer is, or was at the time the decision was made.\n\nOutside of psychological experiments, the outcome bias has been found to be substantially present in real world situations. A study looking at the evaluation of football players' performance by coaches and journalists found that players' performance is judged to be substantially better—over a whole match—if the player had a lucky goal rather than an unlucky miss (after a player's shot hit one of the goal posts).\n\nSee also\n Deontology vs. teleology and consequentialism (ethical theories)\n Group attribution error\n Historian's fallacy\n List of cognitive biases\n\nReferences\n\nCognitive biases", "A four-part referendum on arbitration over a border dispute with Haiti was held in the Dominican Republic on 2 June 1895. Voters were asked whether an arbitration tribunal should be established, whether Pope Leo XIII would be an appropriate arbitrator, what compensation Haiti should receive if the outcome was favourable to the Dominican Republic, and whether the government should comply with the tribunal outcome if it was unfavourable to the Dominican Republic. All four proposals were approved by voters.\n\nAftermath\nAs a result of the referendum, the two countries signed an arbitration agreement on 3 July 1895. However, the Vatican declined the request, noting that it was \"restricted to the simple interpretation of Article 4 of the Treaty of 1874.\" Subsequently the countries agreed to form a mixed demarcation commission on 28 May 1899.\n\nSee also\nDominican Republic–Haiti relations\n\nReferences\n\n1895 referendums\n1895 in the Dominican Republic\n1895\nJune 1895 events\nDominican Republic–Haiti relations" ]
[ "Abenaki", "New Hampshire and minority recognition", "what happened in new hampshire?", "the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group.", "Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?", "Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims", "what happened to the bill?", "This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature.", "what was the outcome?", "I don't know." ]	C_ad08de4e979a49e88d487e14488a9c34_0	what years were hard?	5	What years were hard for the Abenaki?	Abenaki	In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	The Abenaki (Abnaki, Abinaki, Alnôbak) are an indigenous ethnic group in North America, officially recognised in the United States as a Native American tribe and in Canada as a First Nations. They are one of the Algonquian-speaking peoples of northeastern North America. The Abenaki originated in a region called Wabanahkik in the Eastern Algonquian languages (meaning "Dawn Land"), a territory now including parts of Quebec and the Maritimes of Canada and northern sections of the New England region of the United States. The Abenaki are one of the five members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. "Abenaki" is a linguistic and geographic grouping; historically, there was no strong central authority – the Abenaki were composed of numerous smaller bands and tribes who shared many cultural traits. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare. Names The word Abenaki and its syncope, Abnaki, are both derived from Wabanaki, or Wôbanakiak, meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language. While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy. Wôbanakiak is derived from wôban ("dawn" or "east") and aki ("land") (compare Proto-Algonquian wa·pan and axkyi) — the aboriginal name of the area broadly corresponding to New England and the Maritimes. It is sometimes used to refer to all the Algonquian-speaking peoples of the area—Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, Wolastoqiyik-Passamaquoddy, and Miꞌkmaq—as a single group. The Abenaki people also call themselves Alnôbak, meaning "Real People" (c.f., Lenape language: Lenapek) and by the autonym Alnanbal, meaning "men". Historically, ethnologists have classified the Abenaki by geographic groups: Western Abenaki and Eastern Abenaki. Within these groups are the Abenaki bands: Western Abenaki Arsigantegok (also Arrasaguntacook, Ersegontegog, Assagunticook, Anasaguntacook), lived along the St. Francis River in Québec. Principal village: St. Francis (Odanak). The people were referred to as St. Francis River Abenakis, and this term gradually was applied to all Western Abenaki. Cowasuck (also Cohass, Cohasiac, Koasek, Koasek, Coos – "People of the Pines"), lived in the upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal village: Cowass, near Newbury, Vermont. Missiquoi (also Masipskwoik, Mazipskikskoik, Missique, Misiskuoi, Missisco, Missiassik – "People of the Flint"), also known as the Sokoki. They lived in the Missisquoi Valley, from Lake Champlain to the headwaters. Principal village around Swanton, Vermont. Sokoki (also Sokwaki, Squakheag, Socoquis, Sokoquius, Zooquagese, Soquachjck, Onejagese – "People Who Separated"), lived in the Middle and Upper Connecticut River Valley. Principal villages: Squakheag, Northfield, Massachusetts, and Fort Hill. Pennacook (also Penacook, Penikoke, Openango), lived in the Merrimack Valley, therefore sometimes called Merrimack. Principal village Penacook, New Hampshire. The Pennacook were once a large confederacy who were politically distinct and competitive with their northern Abenaki neighbors. Smaller tribes: Amoskeay Cocheco Nashua Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Often classed as Eastern Abenaki. Pemigewasset Piscataqua Souhegan Winnipesaukee (also Winnibisauga, Wioninebeseck, Winninebesakik – "region of the land around lakes"), lived along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Wabanaki Nation Odanak (also known as Pierreville, MRC Nicolet-Yamaska), lived southwest of Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the St. Francois River and Magog River. Wôlinak (also Becancour, MRC Becancour), lived around Trois-Rivières, Centre-du-Québec, and included settlements along the Bécancour River. Eastern Abenaki Androscoggin (also Alessikantekw, Arosaguntacock, Amariscoggin), lived in the Androscoggin Valley and along the St. Francis River, therefore often called St. Francis River Abenaki. Kennebec (also Kinipekw, Kennebeck, Caniba, later known as Norridgewock), lived in the Kennebec River Valley in northern Maine. Principal village: Norridgewock (Naridgewalk, Neridgewok, Noronjawoke); other villages: Amaseconti (Amesokanti, Anmissoukanti), Kennebec, and Sagadahoc. Penobscot (also Panawahpskek, Pamnaouamske, Pentagouet), lived in the Penobscot Valley. Principal villages: Penobscot (Pentagouet), now Indian Island, Old Town, Maine; other villages: Agguncia, Asnela, Catawamtek, Kenduskeag, Mattawamkeag, Meecombe, Negas, Olamon, Passadumkeag, Precaute, Segocket, and Wabigganus. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Pequawket (also Pigwacket, Pequaki), lived along the Saco River and in the White Mountains. Principal village Pigwacket was located on the upper Saco River near present-day Fryeburg, Maine. Occupied an intermediate location, therefore sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Smaller tribes: Apikwahki Amaseconti, lived between the upper Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers in western Maine. Kwupahag (also Kwapahag) Ossipee, lived along the shores of Ossipee Lake in east-central New Hampshire. Sometimes classed as Western Abenaki. Rocameca, lived along the upper Androscoggin River, near Canton, Maine. Wawinak (also Ouanwinak, Sheepscot, Wawenock, Wawnock, Wewenoc), lived in the coastal areas of southern Maine. Maliseet and Passamaquoddy: Maliseet (also Wolastoqiyik, Walastekwyk, Malecite), lived in the inland of upper Maine and middle New Brunswick along the St. John River. Principal villages: Meductic, Aukpaque. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Passamaquoddy (also Peskotomuhktati, Pestomuhkati), lived on the Passamaquoddy Bay coast and inland, between the St. John, St. Croix and Penobscot rivers, in present-day Maine and New Brunswick. Principal village: Machias. Now a separate federally recognized tribe. Location The homeland of the Abenaki, which they call Ndakinna (Our Land), extended across most of what is now northern New England, southern Quebec, and the southern Canadian Maritimes. The Eastern Abenaki population was concentrated in portions of New Brunswick and Maine east of New Hampshire's White Mountains. The other major tribe, the Western Abenaki, lived in the Connecticut River valley in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The Missiquoi lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. The Pennacook lived along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire. The maritime Abenaki lived around the St. Croix and Wolastoq (Saint John River) valleys near the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick. The English settlement of New England and frequent wars forced many Abenaki to retreat to Quebec. The Abenaki settled in the Sillery region of Quebec between 1676 and 1680, and subsequently, for about twenty years, lived on the banks of the Chaudière River near the falls, before settling in Odanak and Wôlinak in the early eighteenth century. In those days, the Abenaki practiced a subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing, trapping, berry picking and on growing corn, beans, squash, potatoes and tobacco. They also produced baskets, made of ash and sweet grass, for picking wild berries, and boiled maple sap to make syrup. Basket weaving remains a traditional activity for members of both communities. During the Anglo-French wars, the Abenaki were allies of France, having been displaced from Ndakinna by immigrating English people. An anecdote from the period tells the story of a Maliseet war chief named Nescambuit or Assacumbuit, who killed more than 140 enemies of King Louis XIV of France and received the rank of knight. Not all Abenaki natives fought on the side of the French, however; many remained on their native lands in the northern colonies. Much of the trapping was done by the people and traded to the English colonists for durable goods. These contributions by Native American Abenaki peoples went largely unreported. Two tribal communities formed in Canada, one once known as Saint-Francois-du-lac near Pierreville, Quebec (now called Odanak, Abenaki for "coming home"), and the other near Bécancour (now known as Wôlinak) on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, directly across the river from Trois-Rivières. These two Abenaki reserves continue to grow and develop. Since the year 2000, the total Abenaki population (on and off reserve) has doubled to 2,101 members in 2011. Approximately 400 Abenaki reside on these two reserves, which cover a total area of less than . The unrecognized majority are off-reserve members, living in various cities and towns across Canada and the United States. There are about 3,200 Abenaki living in Vermont and New Hampshire, without reservations, chiefly around Lake Champlain. The remaining Abenaki people live in multi-racial towns and cities across Canada and the US, mainly in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and northern New England. Four Abenaki tribes are located in Vermont. On April 22, 2011, Vermont officially recognized two Abenaki tribes: the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki and the Elnu Abenaki Tribe. On May 7, 2012, the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi and the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation received recognition by the State of Vermont. The Nulhegan are located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Brownington, and the Elnu Abenaki are located in southeastern Vermont with tribal headquarters in Jamaica, Vermont. The Elnu Abenaki tribe focuses mainly on carrying on the traditions of their ancestors through their children and teaching about their culture. The chief and political leader of the Nulhegan Band is Don Stevens. The Sokoki (the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi) are located along the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont, with tribal headquarters in Swanton. Their traditional land is along the river, extending to its outlet at Lake Champlain. In December 2012, Vermont's Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe created a tribal forest in the town of Barton. This forest was established with assistance from the Vermont Sierra Club and the Vermont Land Trust. It contains a hunting camp and maple sugaring facilities that are administered cooperatively by the Nulhegan. The forest contains . The St Francis Missisquoi Tribe owns forest land in the town of Brunswick, centered around the Brunswick Springs. These springs are believed to be a sacred traditional religious site of the Abenaki. Together these Vermont forests are the only Abenaki-held lands outside of the existing reservations in Quebec and Maine. Language The Abenaki language is closely related to the Panawahpskek (Penobscot) language. Other neighboring Wabanaki tribes, the Pestomuhkati (Passamaquoddy), Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), and Miꞌkmaq, and other Eastern Algonquian languages share many linguistic similarities. It has come close to extinction as a spoken language. Tribal members are working to revive the Abenaki language at Odanak (means "in the village"), a First Nations Abenaki reserve near Pierreville, Quebec, and throughout New Hampshire, Vermont and New York state. The language is polysynthetic, meaning that a phrase or an entire sentence is expressed by a single word. For example, the word for "white man" awanoch is a combination of the words awani meaning "who" and uji meaning "from". Thus, the word for "white man" literally translates to "Who is this man and where does he come from?" History In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the Abenakis' neighbors, pre-contact Iroquois, were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples, including the Abenaki. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest. In 1614, Thomas Hunt captured 24 young Abenaki people and took them to England. During the European colonization of North America, the land occupied by the Abenaki was in the area between the new colonies of England in Massachusetts and the French in Quebec. Since no party agreed to territorial boundaries, there was regular conflict among them. The Abenaki were traditionally allied with the French; during the reign of Louis XIV, Chief Assacumbuit was designated a member of the French nobility for his service. Facing annihilation from English attacks and epidemics of new infectious diseases, the Abenaki started to emigrate to Quebec around 1669. The governor of New France allocated two seigneuries (large self-administered areas similar to feudal fiefs). The first was on the Saint Francis River and is now known as the Odanak Indian Reservation; the second was founded near Bécancour and is called the Wolinak Indian Reservation. Abenaki wars When the Wampanoag people under King Philip (Metacomet) fought the English colonists in New England in 1675 in King Philip's War, the Abenaki joined the Wampanoag. For three years they fought along the Maine frontier in the First Abenaki War. The Abenaki pushed back the line of white settlement through devastating raids on scattered farmhouses and small villages. The war was settled by a peace treaty in 1678, with the Wampanoag more than decimated and many Native survivors having been sold into slavery in Bermuda. During Queen Anne's War in 1702, the Abenaki were allied with the French; they raided numerous small English villages in Maine, from Wells to Casco, killing about 300 settlers over ten years. They also occasionally raided into Massachusetts, for instance in Groton and Deerfield in 1704. The raids stopped when the war ended. Some captives were adopted into the Mohawk and Abenaki tribes; older captives were generally ransomed, and the colonies carried on a brisk trade. The Third Abenaki War (1722–25), called Father Rale's War, erupted when the French Jesuit missionary Sébastien Rale (or Rasles, ~1657?-1724) encouraged the Abenaki to halt the spread of Yankee settlements. When the Massachusetts militia tried to seize Rale, the Abenaki raided the settlements at Brunswick, Arrowsick, and Merry-Meeting Bay. The Massachusetts government then declared war and bloody battles were fought at Norridgewock (1724), where Rale was killed, and at a daylong battle at the Indian village near present-day Fryeburg, Maine, on the upper Saco River (1725). Peace conferences at Boston and Casco Bay brought an end to the war. After Rale died the Abenaki moved to a settlement on the St. Francis River. The Abenaki from St. Francois continued to raid British settlements in their former homelands along the New England frontier during Father Le Loutre's War (see Northeast Coast Campaign (1750)) and the French and Indian War. Canada The development of tourism projects has allowed the Canadian Abenaki to develop a modern economy, while preserving their culture and traditions. For example, since 1960, the Odanak Historical Society has managed the first and one of the largest aboriginal museums in Quebec, a few miles from the Quebec-Montreal axis. Over 5,000 people visit the Abenaki Museum annually. Several Abenaki companies include: in Wôlinak, General Fiberglass Engineering employs a dozen natives, with annual sales exceeding C$3 million. Odanak is now active in transportation and distribution. Notable Abenaki from this area include the documentary filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin (National Film Board of Canada). United States Federally Recognized Tribes The Penobscot Indian Nation, Passamaquoddy people, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians have been federally recognized as tribes in the United States. The Abenaki are a recognized First Nation within Canada. State Recognized Tribes The Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, the Ko'Asek Abenaki Nation of the Koas, the Elnu Band of Abenaki, and the Abenaki Nation of the Missiquoi are all state-recognized tribes in the United States, all in the state of Vermont. The Abenaki are recognized as having minority status in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Recognition allows applicants to seek scholarship funds reserved for American Indians and to receive federal "native made" designation for the bands' arts and crafts. Vermont In 2006, the state of Vermont officially recognized the Abenaki as a people, but not a tribe. The state noted that many Abenaki had been assimilated, and only small remnants remained on reservations during and after the French and Indian War, later eugenics projects further decimated the Abenaki people of America through forced sterilization and questionable 'miscarriages' at birth. As noted above, facing annihilation, many Abenaki had begun emigrating to Canada, then under French control, around 1669. the Odanak band of the Abenaki First Nation, denounced any groups claiming to be Abenaki in the United States. This is largely due to the fact that Vermont Abenaki heavily distanced themselves from their Canadian brethren, causing them to fall away from their tribes. Because of this, it was believed for a long time that there were no more Abenaki in Vermont. However, scholarly sources and oral histories remind that due to the period of eugenics surveys in northern New England, many indigenous peoples changed their names and stated themselves to be white or non-native. This practice is known as paper genocide. There are also scholars who argue that Abenaki groups in the United States have existed continuously since colonization. These groups have organized, re-organized, separated, and sometimes relocated as they endured settler colonial encroachments on their land, war, eugenics, poverty and indenture, and discrimination. New Hampshire and minority recognition In New Hampshire the Abenaki, along with other Native American groups, have proposed legislation for recognition as a minority group. This bill was debated in 2010 in the state legislature. The bill would create a state commission on Native American relations, which would act as an advisory group to the governor and the state government in general. The Abenaki want to gain formal state recognition as a people. Some people have opposed the bill, as they fear it may lead to Abenaki land claims for property now owned and occupied by European Americans. Others worry that the Abenaki may use recognition as a step toward opening a casino. But, the bill specifically says that "this act shall not be interpreted to provide any Native American or Abenaki person with any other special rights or privileges that the state does not confer on or grant to other state residents." New Hampshire has considered expanding gambling separate from the Native Americans. The council would be under the Department of Cultural Resources, so it would be in the same department as the State Council on the Arts. The bill would allow for the creation and sale of goods to be labeled as Native-made, to create a source of income for the Natives in New Hampshire. The numerous groups of Natives in the state have created a New Hampshire Inter-tribal Council, which holds statewide meetings and powwows. Dedicated to preserving the culture of the Natives in New Hampshire, the group is one of the chief supporters of the HB 1610; the Abenaki, the main tribe in the state, are the only people named specifically in the bill. In 2021, a bill was introduced to the New Hampshire legislature to allow New Hampshire communities to rename locations in the Abenaki language. If the bill is passed, the Commission on Native American affairs would be required to help towns choose suitable names. Culture There are a dozen variations of the name "Abenaki", such as Abenaquiois, Abakivis, Quabenakionek, Wabenakies and others. The Abenaki were described in the Jesuit Relations as not cannibals, and as docile, ingenious, temperate in the use of liquor, and not profane. All Abenaki tribes lived a lifestyle similar to the Algonquian-speaking peoples of southern New England. They cultivated crops for food, and located their villages on or near fertile river floodplains. Other less major, but still important, parts of their diet included game and fish from hunting and fishing, and wild plants. They lived in scattered bands of extended families for most of the year. Each man had different hunting territories inherited through his father. Unlike the Iroquois, the Abenaki were patrilineal. Bands came together during the spring and summer at temporary villages near rivers, or somewhere along the seacoast for planting and fishing. These villages occasionally had to be fortified, depending on the alliances and enemies of other tribes or of Europeans near the village. Abenaki villages were quite small when compared to those of the Iroquois; the average number of people was about 100. Most Abenaki crafted dome-shaped, bark-covered wigwams for housing, though a few preferred oval-shaped long houses. During the winter, the Abenaki lived in small groups further inland. The homes there were bark-covered wigwams shaped in a way similar to the teepees of the Great Plains Indians. During the winter, the Abenaki lined the inside of their conical wigwams with bear and deer skins for warmth. The Abenaki also built long houses similar to those of the Iroquois. The Abenaki hold on to their traditions and ways of life in several ways. The Sokoki do so in the current constitution for their government. It has a chief, a council of elders, and methods and means for election to the council and chieftainship, as well as requirements for citizenship in the tribe. They also list many of the different traditions they uphold, such as the different dances they perform and what those dances mean. During several of these dances there is no photography allowed, out of respect for the culture. For several, there are instructions such as "All stand while it is sung" or "All Stand to Show Respect." Hair style and other marriage traditions Traditionally, Abenaki men kept their hair long and loose. When a man found a girlfriend, he would tie his hair. When he married, he would attach the hair of the scalp with a piece of leather and shave all but the ponytail. The modernized spiritual version has the man with a girlfriend tying his hair and braiding it. When he marries, he keeps all his hair in a braid, shaving only the side and back of the head. The spiritual meaning surrounding this cut is most importantly to indicate betrothal or fidelity as a married Abenaki man. In much the same way as the Christian marriage tradition, there is an (optional) exchange and blessing of wedding rings. These rings are the outward and visible sign of the unity of this couple. Changes in the hair style were symbolic of a complex courtship process. The man would give the woman a box made of a fine wood, which was decorated with the virtues of the woman; the woman would give a similar box to the man. Everyone in the tribe must agree to the marriage. They erect a pole planted in the earth, and if anyone disagrees, he strikes the pole. The disagreement must be resolved or the marriage does not happen. Gender, food, division of labor, and other cultural traits The Abenaki were a farming society that supplemented agriculture with hunting and gathering. Generally the men were the hunters. The women tended the fields and grew the crops. In their fields, they planted the crops in groups of "sisters". The three sisters were grown together: the stalk of corn supported the beans, and squash or pumpkins provided ground cover and reduced weeds. The men would hunt bears, deer, fish, and birds. The Abenaki were a patrilineal society, which was common among New England tribes. In this they differed from the six Iroquois tribes to the west in New York, and from many other North American Native tribes who had matrilineal societies. In those systems, women controlled property and hereditary leadership was passed through the women's line. Children born to a married couple belonged to the mother's clan, and her eldest brother was an important mentor, especially for boys. The biological father had a lesser role. Group decision-making was done by a consensus method. The idea is that every group (family, band, tribe, etc.) must have equal say, so each group would elect a spokesperson. Each smaller group would send the decision of the group to an impartial facilitator. If there was a disagreement, the facilitator would tell the groups to discuss again. In addition to the debates, there was a goal of total understanding for all members. If there was not total understanding, the debate would stop until there was understanding. When the tribal members debate issues, they consider the Three Truths: Peace: Is this preserved? Righteousness: Is it moral? Power: Does it preserve the integrity of the group? These truths guide all group deliberations, and the goal is to reach a consensus. If there is no consensus for change, they agree to keep the status quo. Storytelling Storytelling is a major part of Abenaki culture. It is used not only as entertainment but also as a teaching method. The Abenaki view stories as having lives of their own and being aware of how they are used. Stories were used as a means of teaching children behavior. Children were not to be mistreated, and so instead of punishing the child, they would be told a story. One of the stories is of Azban the Raccoon. This is a story about a proud raccoon that challenges a waterfall to a shouting contest. When the waterfall does not respond, Azban dives into the waterfall to try to outshout it; he is swept away because of his pride. This story would be used to show a child the pitfalls of pride. Mythology Ethnobotany The Abenaki smash the flowers and leaves of Ranunculus acris and sniff them for headaches. They consume the fruit of Vaccinium myrtilloides as part of their traditional diet. They also use the fruit and the grains of Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides for food. Many other plants are used for various healing and treatment modalities, including for the skin, as a disinfectant, as a cure-all, as a respiratory aid, for colds, coughs, fevers, grippe, gas, blood strengthening, headaches and other pains, rheumatism, demulcent, nasal inflammation, anthelmintic, for the eyes, abortifacent, for the bones, antihemorrhagic, as a sedative, anaphrodisiac, swellings, urinary aid, gastrointestinal aid, as a hemostat, pediatric aid (such as for teething), and other unspecified or general uses. They use Hierochloe odorata, Apocynum, Betula papyrifera, Fraxinus americana, Fraxinus nigra, Laportea canadensis, a variety of Salix species, and Tilia americana var. americana for making baskets, canoes, snowshoes, and whistles. They use Hierochloe odorata and willow to make containers, Betula papyrifera to create containers, moose calls and other utilitarian pieces, and the bark of Cornus sericea ssp. sericea for smoking. They also use Acer rubrum, Acornus calamus, an unknown Amelanchier species, Caltha palustris, Cardamine diphylla, Cornus canadensis, an unknown Crataegus species, Fragaria virginiana, Gaultheria procumbens, Osmunda cinnamomea, Phaseolus vulgaris, Photinia melanocarpa, Prunus virginiana, Rubus idaeus and another unknown Rubus species, Solanum tuberosum, Spiraea alba var. latifolia, Vaccinium angustifolium, and Zea mays as a tea, soup, jelly, sweetener, condiment, snack, or meal. The Abenaki use the gum of Abies balsamea for slight itches and as an antiseptic ointment. They stuff the leaves, needles and wood into pillows as a panacea. Population and epidemics Before the Abenaki, except the Pennacook and Miꞌkmaq, had contact with the European world, their population may have numbered as many as 40,000. Around 20,000 would have been Eastern Abenaki, another 10,000 would have been Western Abenaki, and the last 10,000 would have been Maritime Abenaki. Early contacts with European fishermen resulted in two major epidemics that affected Abenaki during the 16th century. The first epidemic was an unknown sickness occurring sometime between 1564 and 1570, and the second one was typhus in 1586. Multiple epidemics arrived a decade prior to the English settlement of Massachusetts in 1620, when three separate sicknesses swept across New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Maine was hit very hard during the year of 1617, with a fatality rate of 75%, and the population of the Eastern Abenaki fell to about 5,000. The more isolated Western Abenaki suffered fewer fatalities, losing about half of their original population of 10,000. The new diseases continued to strike in epidemics, starting with smallpox in 1631, 1633, and 1639. Seven years later, an unknown epidemic struck, with influenza passing through the following year. Smallpox affected the Abenaki again in 1649, and diphtheria came through 10 years later. Smallpox struck in 1670, and influenza in 1675. Smallpox affected the Native Americans in 1677, 1679, 1687, along with measles, 1691, 1729, 1733, 1755, and finally in 1758. The Abenaki population continued to decline, but in 1676, they took in thousands of refugees from many southern New England tribes displaced by settlement and King Philip's War. Because of this, descendants of nearly every southern New England Algonquian tribe can be found among the Abenaki people. A century later, fewer than 1,000 Abenaki remained after the American Revolution. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 1,549 people identified themselves as Abenaki. So did 2,544 people in the 2000 U.S census, with 6,012 people claiming Abenaki heritage. In 1991 Canadian Abenaki numbered 945; by 2006 they numbered 2,164. Fiction Lydia Maria Child wrote of the Abenaki in her short story, "The Church in the Wilderness" (1828). Several Abenaki characters and much about their 18th-century culture are featured in the Kenneth Roberts novel Arundel (1930). The film Northwest Passage (1940) is based on a novel of the same name by Roberts. The Abenaki are featured in Charles McCarry's historical novel Bride of the Wilderness (1988), and James Archibald Houston's novel Ghost Fox (1977), both of which are set in the eighteenth century; and in Jodi Picoult's Second Glance (2003) and Lone Wolf (2012) novels, set in the contemporary world. Books for younger readers both have historical settings: Joseph Bruchac's The Arrow Over the Door (1998) (grades 4–6) is set in 1777; and Beth Kanell's young adult novel, The Darkness Under the Water (2008), concerns a young Abenaki-French Canadian girl during the time of the Vermont Eugenics Project, 1931–1936. The first sentence in Norman Mailer's novel Harlot's Ghost makes reference to the Abenaki: "On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago." Non-fiction Letters and other non-fiction writing can be found in the anthology Dawnland Voices. Selections include letters from leader of the early praying town, Wamesit in Massachusetts Samuel Numphow, Sagamore Kancamagus, and writings on the Abenaki language by former chief of the reserve at Odanak in Quebec, Joseph Laurent as well as many others. Accounts of life with the Abenaki can be found in the captivity narratives written by women taken captive by the Abenaki from the early New England settlements: Mary Rowlandson (1682), Hannah Duston (1702); Elizabeth Hanson (1728); Susannah Willard Johnson (1754); and Jemima Howe (1792). Maps Maps showing the approximate locations of areas occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy (from north to south): Notable people Jesse Bruchac, author and linguist Joseph Bruchac, author Indian Joe, a scout around the time of the American Revolutionary War Billy Kidd, former alpine ski racer Joseph Laurent, chief and author Henry Lorne Masta, chief and author Donna L. Moody, repatriation activist Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker and documentarian Annick Obonsawin, voice actress and singer Donald E. Pelotte, Roman Catholic Bishop of Gallup (New Mexico and Arizona) Christine Sioui-Wawanoloath, writer and artist living in Quebec Elijah Tahamont, silent film actor Dark Cloud Alexis Wawanoloath, member of National Assembly of Quebec Footnotes Bibliography Aubery, Joseph Fr. and Stephen Laurent, 1995. Father Aubery's French Abenaki Dictionary: English translation. S. Laurent (Translator). Chisholm Bros. Publishing Baker, C. Alice, 1897. True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada during the Old French and Indian Wars. Press of E.A. Hall & Company, Greenfield, Massachusetts Charland, Thomas-M. (O.P.), 1964. Les Abenakis D'Odanak: Histoire des Abénakis D'Odanak (1675–1937). Les Éditions du Lévrier, Montreal, QC Coleman, Emma Lewis. New England Captives Carried to Canada: Between 1677 and 1760 During the French and Indian Wars, Heritage Books, 1989 (reprint 1925). Day, Gordon, 1981. The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, National Museum Of Man Mercury Series , Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 71 . Reprinted (paperback) Sept. 2006: Vancouver: Global Language Press], ; Dec. 2009 (hardcover): Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series; and April 2010 (paperback): Nabu Press. Masta, Henry Lorne, 1932. Abenaki Legends, Grammar and Place Names. Victoriaville, PQ: La Voix Des Bois-Franes. Reprinted 2008: Toronto: Global Language Press, Maurault, Joseph-Anselme (Abbot), 1866. Histoire des Abénakis, depuis 1605 jusqu'à nos jours. Published at L'Atelier typographique de la "Gazette de Sorel", QC Moondancer and Strong Woman, 2007. A Cultural History of the Native Peoples of Southern New England: Voices from Past and Present. Boulder, CO: Bauu Press, Further reading Other grammar books and dictionaries include: Dr. Gordon M. Day's two-volume Western Abenaki Dictionary (August 1994), Paperback: 616 pages, Publisher: Canadian Museum Of Civilization Chief Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Legends, Grammar, and Place Names (1932), Odanak, Quebec, reprinted in 2008 by Global Language Press Joseph Aubery's Father Aubery's French-Abenaki Dictionary (1700), translated into English-Abenaki by Stephen Laurent, and published in hardcover (525 pp.) by Chisholm Bros. Publishing. External links Missisquoi Abenaki Tribal Council Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe Elnu Tribe of the Abenaki Abenakis of Odanak Council "Welcome to the Abenaki Language" Native Languages of the Americas: Abnaki-Penobscot (Abenaki Language) Abenaki language - recordings Western Abenaki Dictionary and Radio Online Gordan M. Day, "The Identity of the St. Francis Indians" Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples First Nations in Atlantic Canada Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands Native American history of Maine Native American tribes in Maine Native American tribes in Vermont Native American tribes in New Hampshire First Nations in Quebec State recognized Native American tribes Wabanaki Confederacy	false	[ "My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology (1969–1997) is an anthology album by Boz Scaggs.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDisc one\n \"Runnin' Blue\" – \t3:58\n \"We Were Always Sweethearts\" – \t3:29\n \"Near You\" – \t4:59\n \"Painted Bells\" – \t4:02\n \"Dinah Flo\" – \t3:04\n \"Might Have to Cry\" – \t4:06\n \"You Make It So Hard (To Say No)\" – \t3:34\n \"I Got Your Number\" – \t3:48\n \"Slow Dancer\" – \t3:14\n \"Hercules\" – \t4:04\n \"What Can I Say\" – \t3:00\n \"It's Over\" – \t2:50\n \"Harbor Lights\" – \t5:57\n \"Lowdown\" – \t5:16\n \"Lido Shuffle\" – \t3:43\n \"We're All Alone\" – \t4:12\n \"Loan Me a Dime\" – \t13:04\n\nDisc two\n \"Hard Times\" – \t4:30\n \"1993\" – \t4:05\n \"Jojo\" – \t5:52\n \"Isn't It Time\" – \t4:54\n \"Simone\" – \t5:08\n \"Breakdown Dead Ahead\" – \t4:35\n \"Miss Sun\" – \t5:32\n \"Look What You've Done to Me\" – \t5:18\n \"Heart of Mine\" – \t4:14\n \"What's Number One?\" – \t3:59\n \"Drowning in the Sea of Love\" – \t5:02\n \"Sierra\" – \t5:21\n \"Some Change\" – \t6:11\n \"As The Years Go Passing By - \t4:44 \n \"Just Go\" – \t3:01\n \"Goodnight Louise\" – \t4:02\n\nReferences\n\nBoz Scaggs albums\n1997 greatest hits albums\nColumbia Records compilation albums\nLegacy Recordings compilation albums", "Atom Seed was an English hard rock band, popular in the early 1990s. They released their debut album, Get in Line in 1990.\n\nHistory\nAtom Seed were formed in early 1989 in London, England, by former Zoodoll guitarist Simon James' and bassist Chris Huxter's meeting with singer Paul Cunningham and the Iranian-born drummer, Amir. After recording a demo and playing a handful of gigs, Chris Huxter left in late 1989 to be replaced by Chris Dale on bass. The band toured the UK constantly as headliners and also supporting Wolfsbane and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their debut EP was released in early 1990, followed in 1991 by the album Get in Line on FM Revolver Records. Amir was replaced by Jerry Hawkins (formerly of Metal Monkey Machine) on drums before the band's debut European tour. They were signed to London Records for the Dead Happy EP in 1992, but were dropped from the label and split up soon after, with an unreleased album, Hard Sell Paranoia, shelved.\n\nAfter parting ways, their member's enjoyed success over the years, most notably Chris Dale performing, recording and writing for Bruce Dickinson. Dale now plays for the British heavy metal band Tank as well as his own pop rock band, Sack Trick. Simon James formed the band Moko Jumbi, recording an album for A&M Records in 1996 which remained unreleased after the label folded. In 2006, he released an acoustic album The Old Straight Track for Stovepony Records under the name 'Onions', launched at the Green Man Festival.\n\nDiscography\n\nLPs\n Get in Line (1990) FM Revolver Records / (1991) London Records Worldwide\nTracks: \"What You Say\", \"Get in Line\", \"Rebel\", \"Shake That Thing\", \"Shot Down\", \"Forget it Joe\", \"Better Day\", \"What?!\", \"Castles In The Sky\", \"Bitchin'\", \"What You Say\" (Live), \"Burn\" (Live)\n\n Hard Sell Paranoia (1992) Unreleased\nTracks: \"Enemy Song\", \"Love Money Hate\", \"Best of Life\", \"Mother Junk\", \"Tastes Like Money\", \"Idiots\", \"Delusions\", \"Changing Years\", \"Shadows\", \"Rooms\", \"Hard Sell Paranoia\"\n\nEPs\n I Don't Want To Talk About It (1990) ORG/FM Revolver Records\nTracks: \"Doghouse\", \"Sexbeat\", \"Shake That Thing\", \"What?!\"\n\n Rebel (1991) London Records\nTracks: \"Rebel\", \"Everybody\", \"Forget It Joe\", \"Fools To Fall\"\n\n Get In Line (1991) London Records\nTracks: \"Get In Line\", \"Castles In The Sky\", \"What You Say\" (Live), \"Burn\" (Live)\n\n Split with Sepultura – Rock Power Magazine (1991) : Tracks: Sepultura - \"Dead Embryonic Cells\"; Atom Seed - \"Get in Line\"\n\n Dead Happy (1992) London Records\nTracks: \"Happy\", \"What Gives?\", \"Fear\", \"The Assassin\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Atom Seed on Myspace\n\nEnglish hard rock musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1989" ]
[ "Graham McKenzie", "Early years" ]	C_0cc7c4aa6e7f4bfa82c3c256535e2993_1	What was Graham KcKenzie's early years like?	1	What was Graham McKenzie's early years like?	Graham McKenzie	McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931-32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945-46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953-54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958-59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959-60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded in when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. CANNOTANSWER	McKenzie grew up in a sporting family.	Graham Douglas McKenzie (born 24 June 1941) – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Australia (1961–71) and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1965. He succeeded Alan Davidson as Australia's premier fast bowler and was in turn succeeded by Dennis Lillee, playing with both at either end of his career. McKenzie was particularly noted for his muscular physique (hence his nickname) and ability to take wickets on good batting tracks. His father Eric McKenzie and uncle Douglas McKenzie played cricket for Western Australia and Garth was chosen for the Ashes tour of England in 1961 aged only 19. He made his debut in the Second Test at Lord's, where his 5/37 (including the last three wickets in 12 balls) wrapped up the England innings to give Australia a 5 wicket victory. Early years McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931–32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945–46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953–54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958–59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959–60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. International career The 1960–61 season began with McKenzie's third first-class match, against the West Indies. He did not bowl in the first innings but took 4/41 in the second to seal a 94 run win, prompting West Indies captain Frank Worrell to predict a bright future. Further strong performances during the Shield season saw him selected at age 19 for the 1961 Ashes tour under Richie Benaud. Following an injury to Benaud, Australia replaced him with a third seamer, allowing McKenzie to make his debut in the Second Test at Lord's during the "Battle of the Ridge". In his first innings, he made 34 on his twentieth birthday batting at number 10 on a difficult pitch. The last two wickets added 102 and Australia gained a lead of 134. In England's second innings, McKenzie captured the prized wickets of Ted Dexter and Peter May, and took the last three wickets in twelve balls to give 5/37 on debut. Australia went on to win by five wickets. After losing the Third Test at Headingley, Australia won the fourth Test at Old Trafford with McKenzie again making a valuable contribution with the bat. With a lead of only 177 with nine wickets down in the second innings, McKenzie joined Alan Davidson. He held his end for 32 runs while Davidson's powerful hitting saw 98 added for Australia's highest tenth wicket partnership on English soil. This allowed Benaud to bowl Australia to victory on the final day. The youngest member of the touring party, McKenzie was one of eight bowlers to take at least fifty wickets. When Dexter's Englishmen toured Australia in 1962–63, McKenzie was promoted to share the new ball with Davidson. Playing in all five Tests, he did not trouble the batsmen to the same extent as his partner, taking 20 wickets for 30.95. He was noted for his ability to contain the opposition by bowling long spells. Davidson retired at the end of the series and McKenzie became the pace spearhead when South Africa toured in 1963–64. He was Australia's leading bowler with 16 wickets at 43.06. In the Third Test in Sydney, he hit his highest Test score of 76. Five-wicket hauls In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a notable achievement, and as of August 2014 only 23 bowlers have taken at least 20 five-wicket hauls at international level in their cricketing careers. 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968-69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970-71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. In his 60 Tests McKenzie took 5 wickets in an innings 16 times, and 10 in a match three times. McKenzie only played one One Day International, the first ODI against England in 1971, in which he took 2/22. Pace spearhead 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. McKenzie had an unproductive tour of the West Indies in 1964–65 and had mixed fortunes in the 1965–66 Ashes series. He was not selected for the First Test, but took 5/134 in England's mammoth 558 the Second Test at Melbourne. He did little in the Third Test, which Australia lost by an innings, and was one of the five men dropped for the Fourth Test. Fortunately Peter Allan was injured and McKenzie was brought back into the team. The Adelaide Oval was notoriously flat, but McKenzie was an expert on getting batsmen out on dull wickets and used the humid atmosphere and fresh pitch to bowl Bob Barber for a duck and have John Edrich caught by the ever-reliable Simpson at slip. McKenzie took 6/48 to have England out for 241 and Australia won by an innings. He took 3/17 in the second innings in the Fifth Test to finish with 16 wickets (29.18), the chief wicket taker along with Neil Hawke who took 16 wickets (26.18). Thereafter McKenzie became one of the most consistent opening bowlers in the world. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. This was speculated to be due to fears that his dominance over the Indian batsmen was diminishing public interest in the series. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968–69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970–71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. He continued to play for Western Australia until 1974. He came out of retirement in 1977 to play in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. After that, he moved his family to South Africa to play in domestic Limited Overs cricket, before returning to Western Australia. He has the record for taking the most dismissals, hit wicket (4), in Test match history. In 2010, McKenzie was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. References External links 1941 births Australian cricketers Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees Australia One Day International cricketers Australia Test cricketers Cricketers from Western Australia Cricketers who have taken five wickets on Test debut Gauteng cricketers International Cavaliers cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Living people People educated at John Curtin College of the Arts Cricketers from Perth, Western Australia Western Australia cricketers Western Australian Sports Star of the Year winners Wisden Cricketers of the Year World Series Cricket players	true	[ "Graham bread was inspired by Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century reformer who argued that a vegetarian diet, anchored by bread that was baked at home from flour that was coarsely milled at home, was part of a healthful lifestyle that could prevent disease.\n\nLike Graham crackers, Graham bread was high in fiber and made from graham flour free from the chemical additives that were common in white bread at that time such as alum and chlorine. He argued that these chemical additives were unwholesome.\n\nSee also\nBrown bread, a bread that was considered undesirable in early 19th century Europe\nFlour bleaching agent\nHealth food\nHorsebread, a medieval European coarse bread that may have additionally contained the husks or chaff of the grains as well as legumes\nMaida flour, example of a bleached flour used in India\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican breads\nWhole wheat breads", "Carlisle D. Graham (1850 – May 3, 1909) was an American athlete, famous for surviving several journeys through the rapids at Niagara Falls in a barrel, as well as by swimming. Described as the \"Nero of Niagara\", Graham made his journeys at risk to his own life, on one occasion being hit by a large wave and losing the use of his ear.\n\nGraham made his first attempt in 1886, after he desired to follow in the footsteps of Captain Matthew Webb who had died several years prior while trying to swim the whirlpool. He succeeded in going over the falls in 1889, commenting that he \"felt like a man who has passed into the painless portion of a death by drowning.\" Graham's attempts were typically witnessed by large crowds and he would also engage in athletic challenges with other athletes, such as with champion diver Tommy Burns in England.\n\nHe was described as being \"tall, well built and active\" by the age of 57, at which time he was a widower. He died on May 3, 1909 at the home of his sister from a cold and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.\n\nEarly life\nGraham was born in Wilmington, Delaware, although much of his childhood was spent in Canada, near Hamilton on Lake Ontario shores where he learned to swim. At the age of 14, he moved to Philadelphia where he became a cooper. Although he was also a baseball player, he yearned for the sea and in following his desires, made his first voyage to New Orleans.\n\nCareer\n\n19th century\n\nEarly efforts\nIn 1886, three years after Captain Matthew Webb lost his life in the rapids, Graham had ambitions to follow in his footsteps and decided upon passing through Niagara Falls and whirlpool in a barrel cask. Despite being told this would result in his death, he persisted regardless and accomplished his objective on July 11 that year, witnessed by a large crowd of spectators. He had previously attempted this unsuccessfully, having at that time been arrested on suspicion of attempting to commit suicide, although was released two hours later. His feat gained him widespread attention. He attempted this feat again a month later on August 19, keeping his head out the barrel which was described as \"an amazing sight\", until a wave struck the side of his head, resulting in the permanent loss of the use of his ear. He was joined by three others, although on this occasion he lost his cask and had to swim through the rapids unaided.\n\nHe made further journeys in 1887 and again on August 25, 1889, this time in a boat shaped like a barrel. At first, the barrel traveled easily but soon was grasped by more rapid currents which hastened the journey. On several occasions, the boat disappeared from view, on one occasion striking a wave in front of Buttery's elevator, with some believing it to be lost as it was not visible for an extended period of time. Several thousand people gathered to watch him enter the whirlpool, but were disappointed when it was instead carried into quieter waters from the American side, rather than through the main current, as would usually be the case. Despite the dangers faced, he navigated it safely and was picked up just above Lewiston Bridge on the Canadian side.\n\nFirst survival over the falls\nA week later in September 1889, Graham achieved the ambition of his lifetime, going over the falls and surviving. His wife had been reluctant to consent to his voyage unless his barrel was sent over the falls first, which was done and it managed the trip safely in approximately 35 minutes. Despite this, his wife continued to object, though she was assured it would not be until several days later when Graham would attempt the feat himself. Graham made preparations in case he did not survive the trip, offering his gold watch and $40 () cash to Constable Hern with the instruction that the officer should give the items to Graham's family if he did not complete the journey alive. On describing his attempt, Graham said, \"I may be tempting God's providence to try to go over the falls, but it is the ambition of my life to do this. I am satisfied to die if it is necessary. Goodbye, boys.\" When his barrel was retrieved from the water, it had to be broken as Graham had locked the barrel inside with an iron fastener and did not have the strength by that point to release it. He had been in the barrel for around 50 minutes and suffered skinned arms, bruised knees and a blow to the head, although his injuries were not considered serious, except for the blow to the head. His speech was incoherent due to the \"racking he had received\" and complained of considerable pains in his back and head.\n\nHe was afterwards cared for by his wife and remarked to a reporter, \"I determined to make the trip this morning because I was satisfied that I could do it safely.\" He was not able to tell the point he went over the falls, describing that the \"awful shaking up I got stupefied me. I felt happy. I felt like a man who has passed into the painless portion of a death by drowning.\" He declared that he would not attempt the same feat again, as doing it once was enough, noting that he had prepared for the moment for ten years of his life. Although Graham was the first person to go over the falls and survive, he did not venture over the Horseshoe Falls, although had offered to do so for $1,000 with little interest. That feat was achieved 12 years later by Annie Edson Taylor in 1901, using the same barrel that Graham used.\n\nCompetition in England\nOn 15 June 1890, a challenge between him and British champion diver Tommy Burns involved them to each to dive off Runcorn Bridge in England, swim then run . To evade police, Burns dressed as an old women and Graham as a laborer. Burns beat Graham on the swim by 10 minutes and subsequently won the race. Following his jump off Runcorn Bridge on June 19, 1890, he took several similar jumps after this.\n\n20th century\n\nIn July 1901, Graham made his fifth voyage through the rapids in a barrel, watched by about 3,000 people. The journey took around 3 and a half minutes traveling for about from the time the barrel floated from the rapids and in to the whirlpool. Upon being released from the barrel, Graham was partially suffocated and had to be fanned for 30 minutes due to exhaustion, noting that the lack of air was the primary cause of discomfort during his journey. Having completed the journey with just slight brusing around the knees and elbows, he received $300 () for his feat, with the money paid by businessmen who profited from the crowd that were attracted to witness his voyage. Graham announced in August 1902 that he would \"try to do what Captain Webb failed to do on July 24, 1883\", which would be to swim Niagara's whirlpool rapids, although it was reported that his friends would attempt to dissuade him from doing so. Wearing a life preserver around his body and a ring around his neck, he completed the swim on August 31, which was his second from the whirlpool to Lewiston and was cheered on by a large crowd. In what would be his last trip through the Niagara rapids, Graham competed in a swimming race on July 17, 1905 with William J Glover of Baltimore. Over a course of , Glover won by approximately 4 minutes, finishing in a time of 26 minutes. The race was the first time Glover, then described as \"quite a young fellow\", had ventured in the rapids and was watched upon by thousands of spectators. Upon being pulled from the water, Glover was described as being \"quite chipper\", while Graham was \"used up\" and was carried to a nearby hotel where he had dressings applied to his bruises.\n\nIn December 1907, Captain Carlisle Graham, then referred to as the \"Hero of Niagara\", announced his intention on swimming from Niagara Falls to Montreal in Canada, which is a distance of around with his fox terrier \"Beauty\". He described how he would use what he described as the \"American underhand stroke\", believing that it paid to be \"thoroughly American\" by following out that principle when he swam.\n\nPersonal\nIn December 1907, Graham was working as a cooper in Point Breeze, Philadelphia and by that time was a widower at the age of 57. He was described as being \"tall, well built and active\" while not looking like a man of fifty-seven years.\n\nDeath\nOn May 3, 1909, 58-year-old Graham died at the home of his sister from a cold. He had been visiting Winnipeg. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York and the inscription on his headstone reads \"Carlisle D Graham. First to go through the whirlpool rapids in a barrel and live. July 11, 1886\".\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican woodworkers\nPeople who went over Niagara Falls\n1850 births\n1909 deaths\nPeople from Wilmington, Delaware" ]
[ "Graham McKenzie", "Early years", "What was Graham KcKenzie's early years like?", "McKenzie grew up in a sporting family." ]	C_0cc7c4aa6e7f4bfa82c3c256535e2993_1	What type of sports did his family play?	2	What type of sports did Graham McKenzie's family play?	Graham McKenzie	McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931-32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945-46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953-54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958-59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959-60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded in when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. CANNOTANSWER	His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia,	Graham Douglas McKenzie (born 24 June 1941) – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Australia (1961–71) and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1965. He succeeded Alan Davidson as Australia's premier fast bowler and was in turn succeeded by Dennis Lillee, playing with both at either end of his career. McKenzie was particularly noted for his muscular physique (hence his nickname) and ability to take wickets on good batting tracks. His father Eric McKenzie and uncle Douglas McKenzie played cricket for Western Australia and Garth was chosen for the Ashes tour of England in 1961 aged only 19. He made his debut in the Second Test at Lord's, where his 5/37 (including the last three wickets in 12 balls) wrapped up the England innings to give Australia a 5 wicket victory. Early years McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931–32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945–46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953–54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958–59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959–60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. International career The 1960–61 season began with McKenzie's third first-class match, against the West Indies. He did not bowl in the first innings but took 4/41 in the second to seal a 94 run win, prompting West Indies captain Frank Worrell to predict a bright future. Further strong performances during the Shield season saw him selected at age 19 for the 1961 Ashes tour under Richie Benaud. Following an injury to Benaud, Australia replaced him with a third seamer, allowing McKenzie to make his debut in the Second Test at Lord's during the "Battle of the Ridge". In his first innings, he made 34 on his twentieth birthday batting at number 10 on a difficult pitch. The last two wickets added 102 and Australia gained a lead of 134. In England's second innings, McKenzie captured the prized wickets of Ted Dexter and Peter May, and took the last three wickets in twelve balls to give 5/37 on debut. Australia went on to win by five wickets. After losing the Third Test at Headingley, Australia won the fourth Test at Old Trafford with McKenzie again making a valuable contribution with the bat. With a lead of only 177 with nine wickets down in the second innings, McKenzie joined Alan Davidson. He held his end for 32 runs while Davidson's powerful hitting saw 98 added for Australia's highest tenth wicket partnership on English soil. This allowed Benaud to bowl Australia to victory on the final day. The youngest member of the touring party, McKenzie was one of eight bowlers to take at least fifty wickets. When Dexter's Englishmen toured Australia in 1962–63, McKenzie was promoted to share the new ball with Davidson. Playing in all five Tests, he did not trouble the batsmen to the same extent as his partner, taking 20 wickets for 30.95. He was noted for his ability to contain the opposition by bowling long spells. Davidson retired at the end of the series and McKenzie became the pace spearhead when South Africa toured in 1963–64. He was Australia's leading bowler with 16 wickets at 43.06. In the Third Test in Sydney, he hit his highest Test score of 76. Five-wicket hauls In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a notable achievement, and as of August 2014 only 23 bowlers have taken at least 20 five-wicket hauls at international level in their cricketing careers. 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968-69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970-71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. In his 60 Tests McKenzie took 5 wickets in an innings 16 times, and 10 in a match three times. McKenzie only played one One Day International, the first ODI against England in 1971, in which he took 2/22. Pace spearhead 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. McKenzie had an unproductive tour of the West Indies in 1964–65 and had mixed fortunes in the 1965–66 Ashes series. He was not selected for the First Test, but took 5/134 in England's mammoth 558 the Second Test at Melbourne. He did little in the Third Test, which Australia lost by an innings, and was one of the five men dropped for the Fourth Test. Fortunately Peter Allan was injured and McKenzie was brought back into the team. The Adelaide Oval was notoriously flat, but McKenzie was an expert on getting batsmen out on dull wickets and used the humid atmosphere and fresh pitch to bowl Bob Barber for a duck and have John Edrich caught by the ever-reliable Simpson at slip. McKenzie took 6/48 to have England out for 241 and Australia won by an innings. He took 3/17 in the second innings in the Fifth Test to finish with 16 wickets (29.18), the chief wicket taker along with Neil Hawke who took 16 wickets (26.18). Thereafter McKenzie became one of the most consistent opening bowlers in the world. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. This was speculated to be due to fears that his dominance over the Indian batsmen was diminishing public interest in the series. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968–69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970–71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. He continued to play for Western Australia until 1974. He came out of retirement in 1977 to play in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. After that, he moved his family to South Africa to play in domestic Limited Overs cricket, before returning to Western Australia. He has the record for taking the most dismissals, hit wicket (4), in Test match history. In 2010, McKenzie was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. References External links 1941 births Australian cricketers Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees Australia One Day International cricketers Australia Test cricketers Cricketers from Western Australia Cricketers who have taken five wickets on Test debut Gauteng cricketers International Cavaliers cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Living people People educated at John Curtin College of the Arts Cricketers from Perth, Western Australia Western Australia cricketers Western Australian Sports Star of the Year winners Wisden Cricketers of the Year World Series Cricket players	true	[ "Shelby Aldwin Whitfield (April 13, 1935 – February 5, 2013) was a play-by-play sports announcer, author and sports director for ABC Radio.\n\nEarly life and career\nWhitfield was born in Frost, Texas. He attended the University of Texas, where he announced games and did play-by-play coverage for the Plainview Ponies, a minor league team based in Plainview, Texas. He joined the Army in 1955 and became the sports director of American Forces Network within two years.\n\nWashington Senators announcing career\nWhitfield was a play-by-play announcer for the Washington Senators in 1969 and 1970.\n\nKiss It Goodbye\nAfter Senators owner Robert E. Short moved the team to Texas after the 1971 season, to become the Texas Rangers, Whitfield wrote a book called Kiss It Goodbye, which was highly critical of the franchise and its management. The book helped prompt the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the ethics of sports broadcasting.\n\nPost-Senators career\nFollowing his tenure with the Senators, Whitfield worked for WWDC, hosting the talk show \"Sports Roundtable.\"\n\nIn 1974, he joined Associated Press Radio, where he served as the sports director for seven years. Following his tenure there, he joined ABC Radio as its sports director in 1981. In that role, he oversaw coverage of multiple notable sporting events, including the Olympics.\n\nIn 1991, he collaborated with sports journalist and announcer Howard Cosell on a book called What's Wrong With Sports.\n\nHe retired in 1997. He died in Jackson, New Jersey at the age of 77 from complications from diabetes.\n\nReferences\n\n1935 births\n2013 deaths\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nAmerican radio sports announcers\nAmerican television sports announcers\nDeaths from diabetes\nMajor League Baseball broadcasters\nPeople from Navarro County, Texas\nUnited States Army personnel\nUniversity of Texas alumni\nWashington Senators (1961–1971) announcers\nWriters from Texas", "Bryan Hall (born August 19, 1934) nicknamed \"Hallsy\", is a Canadian radio and television personality and retired radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Edmonton Eskimos on 630 CHED in Edmonton, Alberta.\n\nCareer\nHall was born on August 19, 1934 in Toronto, Ontario. His father was a lawyer, who died when Hall was 9, and his mother a nurse. Hall got his first broadcasting job at the age of 19, after moving to Edmonton, at CKUA where he did news, a jazz show, and sports. At the suggestion of a columnist for the Edmonton Journal, Hall also took up a vacant sportscaster job at CHED, which he held from 1955 to 1962. In 1962, Hall moved to Toronto to take up a job covering sports with CHUM, but quickly moved back to Edmonton 3 years later, this time, back to CJCA, where he did play-by-play for the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos with the network from 1965 to 1993. During his time with CJCA, he also pioneered the first open-line sports talk radio show in Edmonton. In the decade of the 70s, Hall worked as a racetrack announcer at Edmonton Northlands Park calling over 10,000 thoroughbred races. When CJCA ceased broadcasting operations in 1993, Hall moved back to CHED to take up the position of sports director - continuing to do play-by-play of Edmonton Eskimos games until 2009.\nAfter 45 years of play-by-play for Edmonton Eskimos games, Hall retired in 2009. During his play-by-play career, he also did play-by-play for the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oil Kings, and Edmonton Flyers. The media centre, The Bryan Hall Media Centre, in Commonwealth Stadium was named after Hall when he retired in 2009. Though retired from doing play-by-play, Hall, in his 65th year of broadcasting, currently does 14 daily shows in the morning on CHED, I News and Global Television. Hall is also known for doing radio advertisements on CHED for local Christenson Developments, Crosstown Motors, and Lay-z-boy Furniture He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.\n\nBroadcasting positions\nCKUA - 1953–55\nCHED - 1955–62\nCHUM - 1962–65\nCJCA - 1965–93\nCHED - 1993–current\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1934 births\nLiving people\nAlberta Sports Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football League announcers\nCanadian radio sportscasters\nEdmonton Elks personnel\nEdmonton Oilers announcers\nSportspeople from Toronto\nWorld Hockey Association broadcasters" ]
[ "Graham McKenzie", "Early years", "What was Graham KcKenzie's early years like?", "McKenzie grew up in a sporting family.", "What type of sports did his family play?", "His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia," ]	C_0cc7c4aa6e7f4bfa82c3c256535e2993_1	Did Graham McKenzie take after this father?	3	Did Graham McKenzie take after his father?	Graham McKenzie	McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931-32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945-46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953-54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958-59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959-60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded in when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. CANNOTANSWER	In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin.	Graham Douglas McKenzie (born 24 June 1941) – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Australia (1961–71) and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1965. He succeeded Alan Davidson as Australia's premier fast bowler and was in turn succeeded by Dennis Lillee, playing with both at either end of his career. McKenzie was particularly noted for his muscular physique (hence his nickname) and ability to take wickets on good batting tracks. His father Eric McKenzie and uncle Douglas McKenzie played cricket for Western Australia and Garth was chosen for the Ashes tour of England in 1961 aged only 19. He made his debut in the Second Test at Lord's, where his 5/37 (including the last three wickets in 12 balls) wrapped up the England innings to give Australia a 5 wicket victory. Early years McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931–32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945–46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953–54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958–59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959–60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. International career The 1960–61 season began with McKenzie's third first-class match, against the West Indies. He did not bowl in the first innings but took 4/41 in the second to seal a 94 run win, prompting West Indies captain Frank Worrell to predict a bright future. Further strong performances during the Shield season saw him selected at age 19 for the 1961 Ashes tour under Richie Benaud. Following an injury to Benaud, Australia replaced him with a third seamer, allowing McKenzie to make his debut in the Second Test at Lord's during the "Battle of the Ridge". In his first innings, he made 34 on his twentieth birthday batting at number 10 on a difficult pitch. The last two wickets added 102 and Australia gained a lead of 134. In England's second innings, McKenzie captured the prized wickets of Ted Dexter and Peter May, and took the last three wickets in twelve balls to give 5/37 on debut. Australia went on to win by five wickets. After losing the Third Test at Headingley, Australia won the fourth Test at Old Trafford with McKenzie again making a valuable contribution with the bat. With a lead of only 177 with nine wickets down in the second innings, McKenzie joined Alan Davidson. He held his end for 32 runs while Davidson's powerful hitting saw 98 added for Australia's highest tenth wicket partnership on English soil. This allowed Benaud to bowl Australia to victory on the final day. The youngest member of the touring party, McKenzie was one of eight bowlers to take at least fifty wickets. When Dexter's Englishmen toured Australia in 1962–63, McKenzie was promoted to share the new ball with Davidson. Playing in all five Tests, he did not trouble the batsmen to the same extent as his partner, taking 20 wickets for 30.95. He was noted for his ability to contain the opposition by bowling long spells. Davidson retired at the end of the series and McKenzie became the pace spearhead when South Africa toured in 1963–64. He was Australia's leading bowler with 16 wickets at 43.06. In the Third Test in Sydney, he hit his highest Test score of 76. Five-wicket hauls In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a notable achievement, and as of August 2014 only 23 bowlers have taken at least 20 five-wicket hauls at international level in their cricketing careers. 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968-69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970-71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. In his 60 Tests McKenzie took 5 wickets in an innings 16 times, and 10 in a match three times. McKenzie only played one One Day International, the first ODI against England in 1971, in which he took 2/22. Pace spearhead 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. McKenzie had an unproductive tour of the West Indies in 1964–65 and had mixed fortunes in the 1965–66 Ashes series. He was not selected for the First Test, but took 5/134 in England's mammoth 558 the Second Test at Melbourne. He did little in the Third Test, which Australia lost by an innings, and was one of the five men dropped for the Fourth Test. Fortunately Peter Allan was injured and McKenzie was brought back into the team. The Adelaide Oval was notoriously flat, but McKenzie was an expert on getting batsmen out on dull wickets and used the humid atmosphere and fresh pitch to bowl Bob Barber for a duck and have John Edrich caught by the ever-reliable Simpson at slip. McKenzie took 6/48 to have England out for 241 and Australia won by an innings. He took 3/17 in the second innings in the Fifth Test to finish with 16 wickets (29.18), the chief wicket taker along with Neil Hawke who took 16 wickets (26.18). Thereafter McKenzie became one of the most consistent opening bowlers in the world. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. This was speculated to be due to fears that his dominance over the Indian batsmen was diminishing public interest in the series. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968–69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970–71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. He continued to play for Western Australia until 1974. He came out of retirement in 1977 to play in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. After that, he moved his family to South Africa to play in domestic Limited Overs cricket, before returning to Western Australia. He has the record for taking the most dismissals, hit wicket (4), in Test match history. In 2010, McKenzie was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. References External links 1941 births Australian cricketers Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees Australia One Day International cricketers Australia Test cricketers Cricketers from Western Australia Cricketers who have taken five wickets on Test debut Gauteng cricketers International Cavaliers cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Living people People educated at John Curtin College of the Arts Cricketers from Perth, Western Australia Western Australia cricketers Western Australian Sports Star of the Year winners Wisden Cricketers of the Year World Series Cricket players	true	[ "Eric Norman McKenzie (9 December 1910 – 28 April 1994) was an Australian cricketer. McKenzie represented Western Australia in one first-class match as a right-handed batsman, against the South African tourists at Perth in October 1931. He also played in grade cricket, and played field hockey for Western Australia. McKenzie enlisted in the Australian Army during the Second World War, and was posted to England, where he played in several games for an army cricket team. His brother Douglas McKenzie and son Graham McKenzie also represented Western Australia.\n\nReferences\n\n1910 births\n1994 deaths\nAustralian cricketers\nAustralian military personnel of World War II\nCricketers from Western Australia\nField hockey people from Western Australia\nPeople from Kalgoorlie\nWestern Australia cricketers\nAustralian male field hockey players", "Double Crossed was Jim Diamond's solo début album in 1985. The album featured Diamond's first three solo singles \"I Should Have Known Better\", \"I Sleep Alone at Night\" and \"Remember I Love You\".\nThe album was dedicated to Diamond's father who had recently died. Diamond would later write \"Hi Ho Silver\" as a tribute song to his father. \"Hi Ho Silver\" was featured on Diamond's second solo album Desire For Freedom. The album was reissued on 23 March 2009 through Cherry Pop Records.\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks composed by Jim Diamond and Chris Parren; except where indicated\n\nSide One\n\"Double Crossed\"\n\"I Sleep Alone at Night\"\n\"After the Fire\"\n\"I Should Have Known Better\" (Diamond, Graham Lyle)\n\"Stumblin' Over\"\nSide Two\n\"Remember I Love You\" (Diamond, Graham Lyle)\n\"New Generation\"\n\"Co-Operation\"\n\"She is Woman\"\n\"I'm Yours\"\n\nPersonnel\nJim Diamond - vocals\nColin Pincott, Earl Slick - guitar\nJohn McKenzie - bass\nChris Parren, Paul \"Wix\" Wickens - keyboards\nSimon Kirke - drums\nMartin Ditcham - percussion\nDick Morrissey - saxophone on \"Double Crossed\", \"After the Fire\" and \"She is Woman\"\nGraham Lyle - acoustic guitar on \"I Should Have Known Better\"\nPip Williams - additional guitar on \"Stumblin' Over\"\nZoot Money - Hammond organ on \"I'm Yours\"\n\n1985 debut albums\nJim Diamond (singer) albums\nA&M Records albums" ]
[ "Graham McKenzie", "Early years", "What was Graham KcKenzie's early years like?", "McKenzie grew up in a sporting family.", "What type of sports did his family play?", "His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia,", "Did Graham McKenzie take after this father?", "In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin." ]	C_0cc7c4aa6e7f4bfa82c3c256535e2993_1	What age was he?	4	What age was Graham McKenzie when McKanzie played as batsman?	Graham McKenzie	McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931-32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945-46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953-54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958-59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959-60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded in when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. CANNOTANSWER	Aged twelve,	Graham Douglas McKenzie (born 24 June 1941) – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Australia (1961–71) and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1965. He succeeded Alan Davidson as Australia's premier fast bowler and was in turn succeeded by Dennis Lillee, playing with both at either end of his career. McKenzie was particularly noted for his muscular physique (hence his nickname) and ability to take wickets on good batting tracks. His father Eric McKenzie and uncle Douglas McKenzie played cricket for Western Australia and Garth was chosen for the Ashes tour of England in 1961 aged only 19. He made his debut in the Second Test at Lord's, where his 5/37 (including the last three wickets in 12 balls) wrapped up the England innings to give Australia a 5 wicket victory. Early years McKenzie grew up in a sporting family. His father, Eric McKenzie, was an opening batsman who played once for Western Australia, against the touring South African cricket team in 1931–32. His uncle, Douglas McKenzie, was a batsman who represented Western Australia on several occasions, scoring 88 in his last game against Lindsay Hassett's Services team in 1945–46. Douglas went on to become President of the Western Australian Cricket Association. Both Douglas and Eric also represented Western Australia in field hockey. In his youth, McKenzie was an all rounder, batting right-handed and bowling off spin. Aged twelve, he gained selection for Western Australia in the 1953–54 under-14 interstate competition held at Adelaide, but the team withdrew after a polio epidemic in Western Australia. The next season, he captained the state when the competition was held in Perth, leading his team to the championship. McKenzie attended John Curtin High School, where he performed well with both bat and ball in the school's first XI. At sixteen he was made his first grade debut for Claremont-Cottesloe as a batsman, but after unproductive performances was dropped to the second XI. The following year in 1958–59, he continued in second grade and took up fast bowling, taking 50 wickets at an average of 14.50 after his team had a pace bowling shortage. He was recalled to the First XI in 1959–60. He finished the season with 515 runs at an average of 39.46 and 49 wickets at an average of 11.21. His efforts were rewarded when the state selectors handed him a debut for the penultimate match of the Sheffield Shield season against Victoria in Melbourne. He went wicketless and scored 22 and 41. He took his first wickets in the final match against South Australia at Perth with 3/69. At season's end, his captain Ken Meuleman advised McKenzie to concentrate on his fast bowling. International career The 1960–61 season began with McKenzie's third first-class match, against the West Indies. He did not bowl in the first innings but took 4/41 in the second to seal a 94 run win, prompting West Indies captain Frank Worrell to predict a bright future. Further strong performances during the Shield season saw him selected at age 19 for the 1961 Ashes tour under Richie Benaud. Following an injury to Benaud, Australia replaced him with a third seamer, allowing McKenzie to make his debut in the Second Test at Lord's during the "Battle of the Ridge". In his first innings, he made 34 on his twentieth birthday batting at number 10 on a difficult pitch. The last two wickets added 102 and Australia gained a lead of 134. In England's second innings, McKenzie captured the prized wickets of Ted Dexter and Peter May, and took the last three wickets in twelve balls to give 5/37 on debut. Australia went on to win by five wickets. After losing the Third Test at Headingley, Australia won the fourth Test at Old Trafford with McKenzie again making a valuable contribution with the bat. With a lead of only 177 with nine wickets down in the second innings, McKenzie joined Alan Davidson. He held his end for 32 runs while Davidson's powerful hitting saw 98 added for Australia's highest tenth wicket partnership on English soil. This allowed Benaud to bowl Australia to victory on the final day. The youngest member of the touring party, McKenzie was one of eight bowlers to take at least fifty wickets. When Dexter's Englishmen toured Australia in 1962–63, McKenzie was promoted to share the new ball with Davidson. Playing in all five Tests, he did not trouble the batsmen to the same extent as his partner, taking 20 wickets for 30.95. He was noted for his ability to contain the opposition by bowling long spells. Davidson retired at the end of the series and McKenzie became the pace spearhead when South Africa toured in 1963–64. He was Australia's leading bowler with 16 wickets at 43.06. In the Third Test in Sydney, he hit his highest Test score of 76. Five-wicket hauls In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a notable achievement, and as of August 2014 only 23 bowlers have taken at least 20 five-wicket hauls at international level in their cricketing careers. 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968-69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970-71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. In his 60 Tests McKenzie took 5 wickets in an innings 16 times, and 10 in a match three times. McKenzie only played one One Day International, the first ODI against England in 1971, in which he took 2/22. Pace spearhead 1964 saw McKenzie make his second Ashes tour of England. He led the attack as Australia retained the Ashes. His 29 wickets in five Tests equalled the highest obtained for Australia in England by Clarrie Grimmett in 1930. He took 21 wickets when Australia visited India and Pakistan on the return journey to Australia. Another seven wickets in a one-off Test against Pakistan in Melbourne in December established a new record for the number of Test wickets in the space of one year; from 11 December 1963 to 8 December 1964 he took 73 wickets in fifteen Tests. This surpassed Maurice Tate's 65 wickets in 1924–25. In this period, he became the youngest bowler to reach 100 wickets, at the age of 23 and 162 days, 139 days younger than A.L. Valentine. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1965, the first Western Australian born recipient. McKenzie had an unproductive tour of the West Indies in 1964–65 and had mixed fortunes in the 1965–66 Ashes series. He was not selected for the First Test, but took 5/134 in England's mammoth 558 the Second Test at Melbourne. He did little in the Third Test, which Australia lost by an innings, and was one of the five men dropped for the Fourth Test. Fortunately Peter Allan was injured and McKenzie was brought back into the team. The Adelaide Oval was notoriously flat, but McKenzie was an expert on getting batsmen out on dull wickets and used the humid atmosphere and fresh pitch to bowl Bob Barber for a duck and have John Edrich caught by the ever-reliable Simpson at slip. McKenzie took 6/48 to have England out for 241 and Australia won by an innings. He took 3/17 in the second innings in the Fifth Test to finish with 16 wickets (29.18), the chief wicket taker along with Neil Hawke who took 16 wickets (26.18). Thereafter McKenzie became one of the most consistent opening bowlers in the world. He toured South Africa in 1966–67 and in 1967–68 was dropped for the final two Tests after taking his only ten wicket match haul against India. This was speculated to be due to fears that his dominance over the Indian batsmen was diminishing public interest in the series. In 1968, McKenzie became a full-time cricketer, believing that it would offer him the best chance of financial security. At the time the Australian Cricket Board regarded its players as amateurs and paid them accordingly. McKenzie joined Leicestershire, captained until 1968 by the Western Australian skipper and former England Test stalwart Tony Lock. He took over four hundred wickets for the county and was instrumental in its four One Day Cricket trophies in the early 1970s and winning their first County Championship in 1975. In 1968–69 he took 30 wickets (25.26) against the visiting West Indies and at 27 became the youngest man to take 200 Test wickets, a record since beaten. Another 21 wickets (21.00) came on the Indian tour of 1968–69, but when the Australian team proceeded to South Africa his form slumped (1/333 in four Tests) and they were whitewashed. It led to suspicions that he had contracted hepatitis. He played in the first four Tests of the 1970–71 Ashes series against England, taking 4/66 in the Second Test at Perth, the first played at the WACA Ground and 2–22 in the first ever One Day International at Melbourne. In the Fourth Test at Sydney McKenzie retired hurt after being hit in the face by a bouncer from John Snow as the England fast bowler took 7–40 in England's 299 run victory. He recovered sufficiently to break Geoff Boycott's forearm in a tour match just before the vital Seventh Test, but was not recalled and was left stranded on 246 Test wickets, two short of Richie Benaud's Australian record. He was only 29 years old. He continued to play for Western Australia until 1974. He came out of retirement in 1977 to play in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. After that, he moved his family to South Africa to play in domestic Limited Overs cricket, before returning to Western Australia. He has the record for taking the most dismissals, hit wicket (4), in Test match history. In 2010, McKenzie was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. References External links 1941 births Australian cricketers Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees Australia One Day International cricketers Australia Test cricketers Cricketers from Western Australia Cricketers who have taken five wickets on Test debut Gauteng cricketers International Cavaliers cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Living people People educated at John Curtin College of the Arts Cricketers from Perth, Western Australia Western Australia cricketers Western Australian Sports Star of the Year winners Wisden Cricketers of the Year World Series Cricket players	true	[ "Richard C. Muhlberger (born 1938 in New Jersey, United States died March 23, 2019) was an American art critic, and museum curator. He was Curator of Education for the Worcester Art Museum. He later became a professor of art history at Western New England College, and the vice-director for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but he is best recognized for his analysis of many famous art pieces.\n\nCareer\nSome of the most famous pieces Mühlberger has critiqued are done by Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pablo Picasso. Along with being a critic, Muhlberger was also a writer. He was known for a series containing critiques of illustrious authors. This series is made up of several books, \"What makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt?\", \"What makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh?\", \"What makes a Monet a Monet?\", \"What makes a Degas a Degas?\", \"What makes a Cassatt a Cassatt?\", \"What makes a Goya a Goya?\", \"What makes a Bruegel a Bruegel?\", What makes a Leonardo a Leonardo?\", \"What makes a Raphael a Raphael?\", and \"What makes a Picasso a Picasso?\". More of his written works included a series titled \"The Bible in Art\". It contains the following books \"Bible in Art: The Old Testament\" and, \"Bible in Art: The New Testament\". Mühlberger's latest work was called \"Charles Webster Hawthorne: Paintings drawings,and Watercolors\".\n\nWorks\n\nDeath\nRichard Muhlberger passed away in June age 2019, age 81\n\nReferences\n\n1938 births\nWestern New England University faculty\nPeople associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art\nLiving people\nPeople associated with the Worcester Art Museum", "What Cheer (pronounced 'WOT-cheer') is a city in Keokuk County, Iowa, United States. It is a former coal town, and from the 1870s to the early 1900s was one of the major coal-producing centers of Iowa. Its greatest recorded population was 3,246, in the 1890 census. The population was 607 in the 2020 census.\n\nNaming\nWhat Cheer was founded in 1865 as Petersburg, named after Peter Britton, its founder. This name was rejected by the Post Office, forcing a change of name. Joseph Andrews, a major and veteran of the American Civil War, suggested the name \"What Cheer,\" and the town was officially renamed on December 1, 1879.\n\nSources differ as to why the name What Cheer was chosen. The phrase what cheer with you is an ancient English greeting dating back at least to the 15th century. One theory of the name is that a Scottish miner exclaimed What cheer! on discovering a coal seam near town.\n\nA more elaborate theory suggests that Joseph Andrews chose the name because of one of the founding myths of his native town of Providence, Rhode Island. According to the story, when Roger Williams arrived at the site that would become Providence in 1636, he was greeted by Narragansett Native Americans with \"What Cheer, Netop\". Netop was the Narragansett word for friend, and the Narragansetts had picked up the what cheer greeting from English settlers. It is possible that the connection between What Cheer, Iowa and What Cheer, the shibboleth of Rhode Island, was merely coincidental - the entries for these subjects are adjacent but not connected in the 1908 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana.\n\nWhat Cheer has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.\n\nHistory\n\nRobert Forsyth, born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, came to America in 1857, and made his way to Rock Island, Illinois, where he arrived penniless. He worked for most of a decade as a coal miner before coming to Petersburg, the future What Cheer. In the 1870s, he began buying coal lands around town, mostly on credit. When the railroad came to town, he leased his land to the coal companies and bought into a local drug store, eventually operating stores in What Cheer, Mystic and Jerome, Iowa. Other Scots from the Kilmarnock region (Ayrshire) also settled in the area. Robert Orr came in 1875 after working in the coal mines of Colchester, Illinois. His son Alexander went on a successful career as a mine owner in Mystic.\n\nThe Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway (BCR&N) built a branch to What Cheer in 1879. With the arrival of the railroad, the What Cheer coalfield quickly became one of the most important coal mining centers in Iowa. The Starr Coal Company had over 200 employees and could produce 1,000 tons of coal per day. By 1883, they were operating three mines and took over several others. When, in 1884, the Chicago and North Western Railway built its line through What Cheer to Muchakinock, there was a further expansion of mining in the area.\n\nLocal Assembly 1474 of the Knights of Labor was based in What Cheer and had a membership of 65 in 1884. On Oct. 15, 1884, 500 miners in What Cheer went on strike, demanding higher wages. The established wage was 3 cents per bushel, and the miners demanded an additional half cent. The state militia was put on alert, but after 6 weeks, the miners accepted a quarter-cent raise. This strike cut coal production in the What Cheer significantly.\n\nIn 1886, the What Cheer Coal Company began to consolidate the local mines, buying up the Starr Coal Company and the Granger Coal Company. In 1887, they employed 1,100 miners, and they continued to operate until 1899. From 1885 to 1901, the Crescent Coal Company was an important local producer.\n\nIn 1891, the BCR&N Railroad's Iowa City Division, serving What Cheer, carried 38,080 tons of coal, by far the most important commodity carried by that line.\nIn 1892, mines along the BCR&N (all of which were in the What Cheer region) loaded 129,316 tons of coal.\n\nOn May 1, 1891, the miners of What Cheer and many other mining towns went on strike for the eight-hour day. 1000 men walked off the job in What Cheer, but returned to work defeated on June 16. On August 15, 1896, the miners struck again over several small grievances. The strike lasted 10 to 12 weeks. Local 841 of the United Mine Workers union was organized in What Cheer in 1897, and in 1902, it had 200 members.\n\nThe first industrial development in What Cheer was driven by the needs of the coal mines. In 1890, What Cheer was home to three firms making mining drills, Walker & Thompson, Enterprise Manufacturing and the newly formed What Cheer Drill Company. Within the decade, the What Cheer Drill and Miners' Tool Company was selling equipment in mining districts around the nation. Alexander Walker, originally with Walker & Thompson filed numerous patents on mining equipment, most of which were assigned to the What Cheer Drill and Miners' Tool Company, later named the What Cheer Tool Company. In 1903, the Starr Manufacturing Company, American Mining Tool Company and the What Cheer Tool Company agreed to a union wage scale with the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths. At the time, the blacksmiths local 259 had just 17 members.\n\nIn 1907, the Volunteer Brick and Tile company was operating its own coal mine to fuel its kilns. The mine had a steam hoist to lift coal 40 feet from a coal seam from 4 to 5 feet thick. The Lea Brothers' mine in north-central What Cheer also had a steam hoist and still shipped some coal by rail. The remaining mines in the area were all small, using horse-gins to operate their hoists.\n\nBy 1909, there were only a few mines left in the county, all producing coal for local consumption in What Cheer. The decline of What Cheer's mines in the 20th century was reflected in declining union membership. In 1912, Local 841 of the United Mine Workers, based in What Cheer, had only 18 members.\n\nThe What Cheer Clay Products Company strip mined local coal into the mid-century, but in their case, coal was a byproduct. Their primary source of clay was the 8 to 12 foot (2.5 to 4 meter) underclay found immediately below the coal. What Cheer Clay Products was organized in 1911. The plant cost $300,000 to build, and was seriously damaged by a fire in 1917. Despite this, by 1920, the company was expanding, purchasing a new Dragline excavator in order to work their clay pit.\n\nGeography\nThe central business district and the larger part of the town is located on the north-east bank of Coal Creek, a tributary of the North fork of the Skunk River.\nAccording to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, is land and is water.\n\nTransportation\nIowa Highway 21 runs north–south through What Cheer. The city's northwestern outskirts border G29 Road.\n\nDemographics\n\n2010 census\nAs of the census of 2010, there were 646 people, 293 households, and 164 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 347 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 98.6% White, 0.2% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.2% from other races, and 0.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.2% of the population.\n\nThere were 293 households, of which 23.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.6% were married couples living together, 11.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.1% had a male householder with no wife present, and 44.0% were non-families. 38.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 17.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.95.\n\nThe median age in the city was 45.3 years. 23.2% of residents were under the age of 18; 7% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 19.5% were from 25 to 44; 28% were from 45 to 64; and 22.3% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.8% male and 52.2% female.\n\n2000 census\nAs of the census of 2000, there were 678 people, 307 households, and 182 families residing in the city. The population density was 559.4 people per square mile (216.3/km). There were 345 housing units at an average density of 284.7 per square mile (110.1/km). The racial makeup of the city was 98.38% White, 0.29% Native American, 0.15% from other races, and 1.18% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.44% of the population.\n\nThere were 307 households, out of which 22.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.9% were married couples living together, 9.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.7% were non-families. 36.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.21 and the average family size was 2.90.\n\nIn the city, the population was spread out, with 22.7% under the age of 18, 8.0% from 18 to 24, 21.8% from 25 to 44, 24.0% from 45 to 64, and 23.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.5 males.\n\nThe median income for a household in the city was $27,292, and the median income for a family was $36,500. Males had a median income of $30,859 versus $22,917 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,613. About 8.6% of families and 11.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.8% of those under age 18 and 11.9% of those age 65 or over.\n\nEducation\nThe Tri-County Community School District operates local area public schools.\n\nNotable people\n\n Betty De Boef, Iowa State Representative and resident\n Frank Hayes, president of the United Mine Workers, 1917–1920, born in What Cheer in 1882\n B. J. Palmer, the developer of chiropractic was born in What Cheer in 1882. \n Ed Thomas, raised in What Cheer, was NFL high school football coach of the year in 2005; he was murdered four years later by one of his former players\n\nIn fiction\nWhat Cheer is the hometown of the title character in Marguerite Young's enormous novel Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (1965). In a 1993 interview, Young claimed to have been unaware that What Cheer was genuine.\n\nIt is mentioned in “Extreme Prey”, by John Sandford, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, Copyright 2016. Library of Congress Catalog number PS3569.A516 E88 2016.\n\nIt is also mentioned several times in the short story \"Dan Peters and Casey Jones\" by Wilbur Schramm, published in Open Throttle. Library of Congress Catalog card number AC 66–10170. Copyright 1966 by Phyllis R. Fenner.\n\nWhat Cheer is also the setting in the novel, \"The Home For Wayward Clocks,\" written by Kathie Giorgio, published by The Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2011. Library of Congress Control Number: 2010933347\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \nMap of coal mines in and around What Cheer\nWhat Cheer Paper\nCity-Data Comprehensive statistical data and more about What Cheer\n\nCities in Keokuk County, Iowa\nCities in Iowa\nPopulated places established in 1865\nCoal towns in Iowa\n1865 establishments in Iowa" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording" ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	What did the Flecktones record?	1	What did the Flecktones record?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo is the second album by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 1991. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. The album title came from an audience member who suggested \"Flight of the Codeine Hippo\"; the band changed \"codeine\" to \"cosmic\".\n\nThe album received two Grammy nominations.\n\nProduction\nThe group's version of \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" was recorded the night the Gulf War began.\n\nCritical reception \nAllMusic's Brian Mansfield wrote: \"The Flecktones owe more to bebop than bluegrass, and here the group finally names their style 'blu-bop.' That's why Flight of the Cosmic Hippo topped the jazz, not the country, chart. The Flecktones continue to make it look easy, adding banjo power chords to 'Turtle Rock' and reworking Lennon/McCartney's 'Michelle'.\" The Chicago Tribune wrote that \"this is a group with a warm, engaging sense of humor and a desire to communicate, not a bunch of Berklee whiz kids practicing lessons in advanced harmonics.\" The Los Angeles Times wrote that \"over the course of the Hippo album, the Flecktones ... essay a traditional Irish folk song, 'Star of the County Down'; a spirited rock 'n' roll number, 'Turtle Rock'; a jazzy take on the Beatles' 'Michelle', and a surprisingly soulful reading of '\"The Star-Spangled Banner\"'.\" The Indianapolis Star deemed the album \"jazz, played with country instruments and down-home warmth—what Chick Corea might sound like if he played with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.\"\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs by Béla Fleck unless otherwise noted.\n\"Blu-Bop\" (The Flecktones) – 4:22\n\"Flying Saucer Dudes\" – 4:51\n\"Turtle Rock\" – 4:12\n\"Flight of the Cosmic Hippo\" – 4:29\n\"The Star-Spangled Banner\" (Francis Scott Key, arr. The Flecktones) – 2:35\n\"Star of the County Down\" (P.D., arr. The Flecktones) – 4:21\n\"Jekyll and Hyde (and Ted and Alice)\" – 7:04\n\"Michelle\" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) – 5:10\n\"Hole in the Wall\" – 4:40\n\"Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Reprise)\" – 2:14\n\nPersonnel\nBéla Fleck – banjo (tracks 2, 4-10), electric banjo (tracks 1, 3), synth (track 1)\nHoward Levy – diatonic harmonica (tracks 2, 3, 5-8, 10), piano (tracks 2-5, 7-10), synthesizers (tracks 1, 2, 4-6, 9), harp in a cup (track 4), harp through micro synth (track 2), double ocarina (track 9), Hammond B-3 organ (track 6)\n\"Future Man\" – Synth-Axe Drumitar\nVictor Wooten – 4-string, 5-string fretless (tracks 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) and 6-string electric basses\n\nProduction notes\nProduced and mixed by Béla Fleck with the Flecktones\nBil VornDick\t – engineer, mixing\nCarlos Grier\t – editing\nDenny Purcell – mastering\nMark Nevers – assistant engineer\nKeith Odle – mixing assistant\nRichard Battaglia\t – assistant engineer, mixing assistant\nMark Tucker – photography\nElvis Wilson – design\nLaura LiPuma – art direction\nMark Fox – artwork\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n\nBéla Fleck and the Flecktones albums\n1991 albums\nWarner Records albums", "The Hidden Land is the eighth studio album and twelfth album overall released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, released in 2006. It was recorded before the band's year-long hiatus during 2005 and released afterward. The Hidden Land won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.\n\nReception \n\nIn his Allmusic review, music critic Thom Jurek was lukewarm about the album, writing \"It's not that complexity and a multiplicity of ideas is a bad thing; quite the opposite, but knowing when to and make the music sing is another thing. This record sings only in a couple of places. The rest is \"serious Flecktones.\" Perhaps this determination is simply not for most of us. It's easy to accept that, especially when those serious Flecktones fans will be debating individual musical passages until the next album is released.\" Devin Grant of No Depression wrote: \"Fleck keeps things centered, wielding his banjo in directions the instrument wasn’t originally envisioned to go.\"\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs by Béla Fleck unless otherwise noted.\n\"Fugue from Prelude/Fugue No. 20 in A minor, BWV 889\" (J.S. Bach, arr. The Flecktones) – 1:51\n\"P'Lod In The House\" (Future Man/B. Fleck) – 3:46\n\"Rococo\" – 3:46\n\"Labyrinth\" – 6:21\n\"Kaleidoscope\" (The Flecktones) – 5:08\n\"Who's Got Three?\" – 5:22\n\"Weed Whacker\" – 7:44\n\"Couch Potato\" – 3:03\n\"Chennai\" (Jeff Coffin/B. Fleck) – 5:48\n\"Subterfuge\" – 4:04\nInterlude (The Flecktones) – 0:39\n\"Misunderstood\" – 7:27\n\"The Whistle Tune\" – 4:54\n\nPersonnel\nBéla Fleck - 1937 Style 75 Gibson Mastertone banjo (tracks 1, 7, 8, 13), 1936 Style 18 Gibson Top Tension gut string banjo (track 3), 2004 Deering Tenbrooks banjo (track 5), 1932 Vega-Vox Deluxe banjo (track 6), Deering Crossfire electric banjo (tracks 2, 9), 1967 Rickenbacker 5-string electric banjo (track 10, 11), Deering 6-String bantar (tracks 11, 12), Paradis stereo guitar (track 4), synth (track 9)\nJeff Coffin - Soprano saxophone (tracks 2, 5, 7, 8, 11), tenor saxophone (tracks 4, 10, 12), alto saxophone (track 1), flute (tracks 3, 9), clarinet (track 6), D whistle (tracks 4, 13), low-D whistle (track 13), conch shell (track 8), singing bowl (track 9), sleigh bells (tracks 8, 9), synthesizer (tracks 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 13), synth (track 10), high throat singing (track 9)\nRoy \"Future Man\" Wooten - Synth-Axe Drumitar, acoustic percussion, Zendrum (track 1), vocals (tracks 4, 12), throat singing (track 9)\nVictor Wooten - Fodera 4 string electric bass (tracks 1–5, 7, 8, 10, 13), Compito 5 string fretless electric bass, (tracks 6, 9, 11, 12), synth pedal (tracks 4, 7)\n\nProduction notes\nBéla Fleck with the Flecktones\nRobert Battaglia – engineer, mixing\nRichard Dodd – mastering\nFrank Ockenfels – photography\nChristopher Austopchuk – art direction\nGiulio Turturro – design\n\nChart positions\n\nReferences\n\nBéla Fleck and the Flecktones albums\n2006 albums\nGrammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (" ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	When was their debut album released?	2	When was the Flecktones debut album released?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	1989	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "\"Evil Woman\", sometimes titled \"Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games with Me)\", is a song by Minneapolis-St. Paul-based band Crow, on their 1969 album Crow Music. It reached number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100 pop chart and number 65 in Australia.\n\nChart performance\n\nCover versions\n\nBlack Sabbath version\n\nThe song was covered in 1969 by Black Sabbath and was released in England as the band's first-ever single. The song also appeared on the European version of the band's debut album, Black Sabbath, though it was excluded from versions released in other markets and was replaced by its B-side, \"Wicked World\", on the American version of the album.\n\nThe song was not officially released in North America until 2002, when it was included on the compilation album Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath 1970–1978. It was later included on another compilation album, \"Black Sabbath: The Ultimate Collection\", released in 2016.\n\nOther recordings\n A gender swapped version of the song, retitled \"Evil Man\", was recorded by Ike & Tina Turner, and released on their May 1970 album Come Together.\n Jazz Sabbath released an instrumental jazz rendition of this song on their 2020 self-titled debut album.\n British heavy metal band Saxon covered the song on their 2021 album of covers Inspirations.\n\nReferences\n\n1969 singles\n1970 debut singles\nBlack Sabbath songs\n1969 songs", "Young Guns are an English rock band from Buckinghamshire and London. On 22 June 2009 they released their debut EP Mirrors, and their debut album All Our Kings Are Dead was released a year later on 12 July 2010. Their second album, Bones, was released in February 2012. Their third studio album, Ones and Zeros, was released in June 2015, and their fourth, Echoes, was released in September 2016.\n\nStudio albums\n\nEPs\n\nSingles\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences \n\nDiscographies of British artists\nRock music group discographies" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (", "When was their debut album released?", "1989" ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	How did the album do on the music charts?	3	How did the Flecktones debut album do on the music charts?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album,	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "\"Roll On\" is a song by British girl group Mis-Teeq. Produced by Blacksmith, it was recorded for the band's debut album, Lickin' on Both Sides (2001). The song was released on a double A-single along with a cover version of Montell Jordan's \"This Is How We Do It\" on 17 June 2002, marking the album's final single. Upon its release, it became another top-10 success for the band on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number seven.\n\nMusic video\nInstead of filming two separate music videos for the double A-side single, one music video was filmed combining both songs. The video opens with \"Roll On\", starting with a group of men playing basketball in a court. The three members of Mis-Teeq (Alesha Dixon, Su-Elise Nash and Sabrina Washington) arrive in a lowrider and watch the men play basketball, and occasionally join in. Then it changes to dusk and cuts to the single \"This Is How We Do It\". The music video was filmed in various parts of Los Angeles, California in the US.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUK CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" / \"This Is How We Do It\" (video)\n\nUK cassette single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich radio mix)\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich BhangraHop edit) – 3:45\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit) – 3:27\n\nAustralian CD single\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich radio mix)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Rishi Rich Mayfair edit)\n \"Roll On\" (Blacksmith Olde Skool mix)\n \"This Is How We Do It\" (Mayfair club rub)\n \"Roll On\" (Rishi Rich club mix)\n\nCharts\nAll entries charted with \"This Is How We Do It\" except where noted.\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2001 songs\n2002 singles\nMis-Teeq songs\nTelstar Records singles", "\"Somebody New\" is a song by American band Joywave. It is the second single from their debut studio album How Do You Feel Now? and it also appeared on the band's second extended play How Do You Feel?. A music video for the song was uploaded to the band's YouTube Vevo channel on February 24, 2015. The song was performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, featured in promotional videos for X Games Austin 2015, and featured on the soundtrack for Pro Evolution Soccer 2016.\n\nMusic video\nThe official music video for the song, lasting three minutes and twenty-seven seconds, was uploaded to the band's Vevo channel on YouTube on February 24, 2015 and was directed by Keith Schofield. The video is mainly centered on skateboarding and also features CGI animation, which is used for scenes involving certain stunts and glitches involving the skateboarders in the video.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n\nCD-R\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2014 singles\n2014 songs\nHollywood Records singles" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (", "When was their debut album released?", "1989", "How did the album do on the music charts?", "received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album," ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	What is the name of a song from the album?	4	What is the name of a song from the Flecktones debut album?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	CANNOTANSWER	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	false	[ "\"It Is What It Is\" is an idiomatic phrase, indicating the immutable nature of an object or circumstance and may refer to:\n It Is What It Is, a 2001 film by Billy Frolick\n It Is What It Is, a 2007 autobiography by David Coulthard\n It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, a project by Jeremy Deller\n It Is What It Is, a radio show hosted by Sean Baligian\n\nMusic\n B.A.R.S. The Barry Adrian Reese Story or It Is What It Is, a 2007 album by Cassidy\n It Is What It Is (ABN album) (2008)\n It Is What It Is (Johnny Logan album) (2017)\n It Is What It Is (Thundercat album) (2020)\n It Is What It Is, a 1982 album by The Hitmen\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 1988 song by Derrick May from the compilation album Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit\n \"It Is What It Is (What It Is)\", a 1992 song by Adam Again from Dig\n\"It Is What It Is\", a 1995 song by The Highwaymen from the album The Road Goes On Forever\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2010 song by Lifehouse from Smoke & Mirrors\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2013 song by Blood Orange from Cupid Deluxe\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2013 song by Kacey Musgraves from Same Trailer Different Park\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2016 song by Lecrae from Church Clothes 3\n \"It Is What It Is\", a 2009 song by Vic Chesnutt from At the Cut\n\nSee also \n Fihi Ma Fihi, a Persian prose work by Rumi\n Tautophrase\n What It Is (disambiguation)", "This list shows cover versions of songs originally by the Irish rock band U2 that have been recorded and released.\n\n\"40\"\n\"40\" is the tenth and final track from U2's 1983 album, War. It is the final single from the album, released solely in Germany in 1983. The song was recorded right at the end of the recording sessions for War. Bassist Adam Clayton had already left the studio, and the three remaining band members decided they did not have a good song to end the album. Bono noted that \"We spent ten minutes writing this song, ten minutes recording it, ten minutes mixing it, ten minutes playing it back, and that's got nothing to do with why it's called '40'.\"\n\n{\|class=\"wikitable\"\n\|-\n! Year\n! Covered by\n! Album\n\|-\n\| 1997\n\| Charlie Hall\n\| Joels Window\|-\n\| 2000\n\| The Section\n\| Strung out on U2\|-\n\| 2001\n\| dc Talk\n\| Solo\|-\n\| 2001\n\| Apt.core\n\| Rhythms Of Remembrance\|-\n\| 2002\n\| Michael W. Smith\n\| Worship DVD\|-\n\| 2003\n\| Paul Meany\n\| Elevator Music (Live Worship From Victory Fellowship)\|-\n\| 2003\n\| Trent\n\| Hold On\|-\n\n\| 2004\n\| Starfield\n\| In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa\n\|-\n\| 2005\n\| The Frames\n\| Even Better Than the Real Thing Vol. 3\|}\n\n Acrobat \n\"Acrobat\" is the eleventh track from U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby.\n\nAll I Want Is You\n\"All I Want Is You\" is the 17th song on U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum and was released in 1989 as the album's fourth and final single. It is the closing song from the movie Rattle and Hum.\n\nAn Cat Dubh\n\"An Cat Dubh\" is the third track from U2's debut album, Boy. It is frequently paired with the following song from the same album, \"Into the Heart\".\n\nAngel of Harlem\n\"Angel of Harlem\" is the second single from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. It peaked at #9 on the UK singles chart. It is an homage to Billie Holiday.\n\nBad\n\"Bad\" is the seventh track from U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. Often considered a fan favorite, it is U2's tenth most frequently performed song in concert. The song is about a heroin addiction.\n\nBeautiful Day\n\"Beautiful Day\" is the lead single from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. It was a huge commercial success, helping to launch the album to multi-platinum status, and is one of U2's biggest hits to date.\n\nBreathe\n\"Breathe\" is the tenth track from U2's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon. Longtime U2 collaborator and producer Brian Eno cited Breathe as \"the best thing (U2) have ever recorded\" during an interview with Q magazine.\n\nBullet the Blue Sky\n\"Bullet the Blue Sky\" is the fourth track from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. The song was originally written about the United States' military intervention during the 1980s in the El Salvador Civil War.\n\nCity of Blinding Lights\n\"City of Blinding Lights\" is the fifth track and third single from the 2005 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The song tells the story of U2's first arrival in New York City in 1980, with Bono remarking it was an \"amazing, magical time in our life, when we didn't know how powerful it was not to know.\"\n\nDesire\n\"Desire\" is the lead single from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. It was their first #1 single in the UK and their first #1 on the newly instated Modern Rock Tracks chart.\n\nDiscothèque\n\"Discothèque\" is the lead single and opening track from the 1997 album, Pop. It is the only song from the album to have been played on every tour since its debut.\n\nDrowning Man\n\"Drowning Man\" is the fifth track on U2's 1983 album, War. Its sound is a departure from the other tracks in War.\n\nThe Electric Co.\n\"The Electric Co.\" is the tenth track from U2's debut album, Boy. When performed live it is frequently preceded by the unrecorded song, \"The Cry\".\n\nElevation\n\"Elevation\" is the third track and third single release from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. Featuring a thunderous beat, a variety of sound effects on the central guitar riff, and an easy rhyming lyric for the audience to shout along with, it was highly effective in that concert-starting role and became a hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.\n\nEven Better Than the Real Thing\n\"Even Better Than the Real Thing\" is the second song from U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby and was released in 1992 as the fourth single from the album.\n\nExit\nExit is the 10th track of U2's Joshua Tree, released in 1987.\n\nThe Fly\n\"The Fly\" is the seventh song on U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby and was released as the album's first single. It has been described as \"the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree.\" The song's subject is that of a phone call from someone in Hell who enjoys being there and telling the person on the other line what he has learned. \"The Fly\" was an introduction to the sonic and electronic experimentation that would dominate U2's 1990s work.\n\nGet on Your Boots\n\"Get on Your Boots\" is the lead single and sixth track from No Line on the Horizon.\n\nGloria\n\"Gloria\" was the second single and opening track from U2's 1981 album, October.\n\nGod Part II\n\"God Part II\" is the fourteenth track from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. The song is a departure from the sound of the album's other studio recordings, and is an introduction to the darker sound the band would adopt for the release of their next album, Achtung Baby.\n\nGrace\n\"Grace\" is the final track from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind.\n\nHeartland\n\"Heartland\" is the thirteenth track from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. Unlike the other studio tracks from the album, \"Heartland\" was left over from The Joshua Tree sessions.\n\nHold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me\n\"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me\" is a single by U2 from the Batman Forever soundtrack album, released in 1995. It was also included on the compilation album, The Best of 1990-2000. As well as all the covers, \"Weird Al\" Yankovic parodied the song as \"Cavity Search\" for his 1996 album Bad Hair Day.\n\nI Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For\n\"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For\" is the second track from U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree, and was released as the album's second single. The song grew from another song called \"Under the Weather Girls\", from which Larry Mullen, Jr.'s drum track was used as a foundation. \"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For\" is the most frequently covered U2 song.\n\nI Will Follow\n\"I Will Follow\" is the opening track from U2's debut album, Boy. It was written by Bono about the death of his mother, who died of a brain hemorrhage at the funeral of her father.\n\nI'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight\n\"I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight\" is the third single and fifth track from the 2009 album No Line on the Horizon. The track underwent several name changes during the album sessions, known first as \"Diorama\" and then \"Crazy Tonight\" before the final selection. Several of the song's lyrics were influenced by Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The song was used in television commercials for a new Blackberry application, called the \"U2 Mobile App\", which was developed as part of Research in Motion's sponsorship of the U2 360° Tour.\n\nIn a Little While\n\"In a Little While\" is the sixth track from U2's 2000 album All That You Can't Leave Behind. While originally about a hangover, Bono later stated that the song's connection to Joey Ramone—being the last song he heard before his death in 2001—has given it a deeper religious meaning, and he now refers to it as a Gospel song\". \"In a Little While\" was played often throughout the Elevation Tour, and was frequently snippeted inside \"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For\" during the Vertigo Tour.\n\nIn God's Country\n\"In God's Country\" is the seventh track and fourth single from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. A live version of the song appears in the U2 rockumentary, Rattle and Hum.\n\nLike a Song...\n\"Like a Song...\" is the fourth track from U2's 1983 album, War. It was only played live once, on 26 February 1983 in Dundee, Scotland.\n\nLove Is Blindness\n\"Love Is Blindness\" is the twelfth and final song from U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby. Much of the album relates to love gone wrong, in one form or another; the lyrics to \"Love Is Blindness\" reflect this theme, juxtaposing love and violent imagery.\n\nLove Rescue Me\n\"Love Rescue Me\" is the eleventh track from U2's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum. It is a collaboration between the band and Bob Dylan, who also provides vocals to the recording.\n\nMagnificent\n\"Magnificent\" is the second track and single from No Line on the Horizon. The track was originally titled \"French Disco\", but was renamed during the recording process.\n\nMiss Sarajevo\n\"Miss Sarajevo\" is the only single from the 1995 album Original Soundtracks 1 by U2, under the pseudonym Passengers. Luciano Pavarotti makes a guest vocal appearance, singing the opera solo. It also appears on the compilation album, The Best of 1990–2000.\n\nMLK\n\"MLK\" is the tenth and final track of U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. A lullaby to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., it is a short, pensive piece with simple lyrics.\n\nMoment of Surrender\n\"Moment of Surrender\" is the third track from No Line on the Horizon. The song tells the story of a heroin addict's spiritual awakening at an automated teller machine.\n\nMothers of the Disappeared\n\"Mothers of the Disappeared\" is the eleventh and final track from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree.\n\nMysterious Ways\n\"Mysterious Ways\" is the eighth track on U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby, and was released as the album's second single.\n\nNew Year's Day\n\"New Year's Day\" is the third song and lead single from U2's 1983 album, War. The song is driven by Adam Clayton's distinctive bassline and The Edge's keyboard. It was the band's first hit single, breaking the top ten in the UK and charting on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in their career. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine placed the single at number 427 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.\n\nNo Line on the Horizon\n\"No Line on the Horizon\" is the opening and title track from the 2009 album No Line on the Horizon.\n\nNorth and South of the River\n\"North and South of the River\" is a B-side to the 1997 single \"Staring at the Sun\".\n\nNumb\n\"Numb\" is the third track from U2's 1993 album, Zooropa, and was released as the album's first single.\n\nOctober\n\"October\" is the seventh and title track from U2's 1981 album, October. It is a departure from U2's classic sound, as it is a quiet, almost instrumental piece. It was included as a hidden track on The Best of 1980–1990.\n\nOne\n\"One\" is the third song from U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby, and was released as a single in 1992. Tensions during the recording of the album almost prompted U2 to break-up until the band rallied around the writing of \"One\". It is widely considered to be one of the band's greatest songs and is consistently featured in lists of the greatest songs of all time, including Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, where it placed #36, and #1 on Q Magazine's list of the 1001 Greatest Songs of All-Time.\n\nOne Tree Hill\n\"One Tree Hill\" is the ninth track and final single from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. The single was released as a single exclusively in New Zealand in 1988, where it reached number one. The title of the song refers to One Tree Hill, a volcanic peak in Auckland, New Zealand.\n\nPride (In the Name of Love)\n\"Pride (In the Name of Love)\" is the second song on U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire and was released as the album's first single. Written about Martin Luther King, Jr., it is one of the band's most recognized songs.\n\nPromenade\n\"Promenade\" is the fifth track on U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire.\n\nRed Hill Mining Town\n\"Red Hill Mining Town\" is the sixth track from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree.\n\nRunning to Stand Still\n\"Running to Stand Still\" is the fifth track from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. It is a soft, slow, keyboard-based song about a heroin-addicted woman from the Ballymun Seven Towers area of Dublin.\n\nSeconds\n\"Seconds\" is the second track on U2's 1983 album, War. The track contains a clip from the 1982 documentary Soldier Girls, and is the first song by the band not sung solely by Bono; The Edge sings the first two stanzas.\n\nSilver and Gold\n\"Silver and Gold\" was originally written by Bono in support of the Artists United Against Apartheid project. It was recorded in 1985 by Bono, as well as Keith Richards and Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones. U2 later re-recorded and released the track as a B-side for their 1987 single, \"Where the Streets Have No Name\".\n\nSo Cruel\n\"So Cruel\" is the sixth track from U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby.\n\nSometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own\n\"Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own\" is the second single from U2's 2004 album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. It was released in the United Kingdom in February 2005, and debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart. The song won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Song of the Year at the 2006 Grammy Awards.\n\nStay (Faraway, So Close!)\n\"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)\" is the fifth track from U2's 1993 album, Zooropa, and was released as the album's third single on November 22, 1993. It was released on the soundtrack for the Wim Wenders film, Faraway, So Close!. While speaking with Rolling Stone, Bono noted that \"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)\" is one of his personal favourite, and one of their most underrated, U2 songs.\n\nStuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of\n\"Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of\" is a single release from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. It won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 2002.\n\nSunday Bloody Sunday\n\"Sunday Bloody Sunday\" is the opening track and third single from U2's 1983 album, War. The song is noted for its militaristic drumbeat, simple but harsh guitar, and melodic harmonies. One of U2's most overtly political songs, its lyrics describe the horror felt by an observer of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.\n\nSweetest Thing\n\"Sweetest Thing\", sometimes titled \"The Sweetest Thing\", is a B-side to the \"Where the Streets Have No Name\" single. It was re-recorded and released as a single for the 1998 compilation album The Best of 1980-1990. The song was written by Bono as an apology to his wife for forgetting her birthday during the creation of The Joshua Tree.\n\nThe Three Sunrises\n\"The Three Sunrises\" is a track from the 1985 EP Wide Awake in America.\n\nTomorrow\n\"Tomorrow\" is the sixth track on 1981's October album.\n\nTryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World\n\"Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World\" is the ninth track on the 1991 album, Achtung Baby. The song is a lighthearted account of a drunken journey home.\n\nTwo Hearts Beat as One\n\"Two Hearts Beat as One\" is the seventh track on U2's 1983 album, War. It was released as the album's second single but only in the US, UK and Australia.\n\nUltraviolet (Light My Way)\n\"Ultraviolet (Light My Way)\" is the tenth track from U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby.\n\nThe Unforgettable Fire\n\"The Unforgettable Fire\" is the fourth track from the 1984 album of the same name, and was released in 1985 as the album's second and last single. The title is a reference to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan in World War II.\n\nUnknown Caller\n\"Unknown Caller\" is the fourth track from the 2009 album No Line on the Horizon. According to The Edge, \"the idea is that the narrator is in an altered state, and his phone starts talking to him\".\n\nUntil the End of the World\n\"Until the End of the World\" is the fourth track from U2's 1991 album, Achtung Baby. The song is reputed to describe a conversation between Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot.\n\nVertigo\n\"Vertigo\" is the lead single and opening track for the 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The track was an international hit, winning three Grammy awards at the 2005 event and being featured in an iPod commercial.\n\nThe Wanderer\n\"The Wanderer\" is the tenth and final track on the 1993 album Zooropa. The song features Johnny Cash on lead vocals and tells the story of a man searching for God in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world. The song has only been performed live once, as a posthumous tribute to Johnny Cash, with Bono singing lead vocals.\n\nWake Up Dead Man\n\"Wake Up Dead Man\" is the closing track from the 1997 album Pop. The title was first revealed in 1993, as part of it was superimposed on the cover of the album Zooropa.\n\nWalk On\n\"Walk On\" is the fourth single and track from the album All That You Can't Leave Behind. Written about and dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, the track is banned in Burma, and anyone who has possession of either the single of the song or the album could face a prison sentence lasting between three and twenty years. The title for All That You Can't Leave Behind stems from lyrics in the song.\n\nWhen Love Comes to Town\n\"When Love Comes to Town\" was a collaboration between U2 and B.B. King, released as a single for the album Rattle and Hum.\n\nWhere the Streets Have No Name\n\"Where the Streets Have No Name\" is the third single from the 1987 album The Joshua Tree. The track's signature is a repeating guitar arpeggio utilizing a delay effect that is played at the beginning and end of the song. The song's frequent chord and time changes caused problems in playing the song correctly; the difficulty was so great that producer Brian Eno attempted to erase the track. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. later said of the song, \"It took so long to get that song right, it was difficult for us to make any sense of it. It only became a truly great song through playing live. On the record, musically, it's not half the song it is live.\"\n\nWho's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses\n\"Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses\" was released in 1992 as the fifth and final single for the 1991 album Achtung Baby.\n\nWire\n\"Wire\" is the third track on U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. Described by Bono as the \"hypodermic needle of the album\", it features a fast-paced rhythm section and The Edge's classic ringing guitar sound. It was one of the first songs by the band that detailed drug addiction, a theme present in later songs such as \"Bad\" and \"Running to Stand Still\".\n\nWith or Without You\n\"With or Without You\" is the lead single from U2's 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. It has since become highly acclaimed as one of the band's most popular songs. Released as a single in March 1987, it became the group's first American #1 hit.\n\nZoo Station\n\"Zoo Station\" is the first track on U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby''.\n\nSee also\n U2\n U2 discography\n\nNotes\n\n1. On this release, the title of \"Drowning Man\" was changed to \"Drowning Man (Drowning)\".\n2. This cover of \"Even Better Than the Real Thing\" was released as the \"Julian Beeston Mix\".\n3. This cover was listed as \"Model donjeg veša\", the Serbian language translation of \"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me\".\n4. The songs \"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For\" and \"Sunday Bloody Sunday\" were combined on this track.\n5. Live version recorded in a 2005 BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge; track was not released until November 2009.\n6. This cover of \"Discothèque\" was released as the \"Suspiria Mix\".\n\nReferences\n\nCovers\nU2" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (", "When was their debut album released?", "1989", "How did the album do on the music charts?", "received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album,", "What is the name of a song from the album?", "I don't know." ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	Did they collaborate with any other musical artists in their recording?	5	Did the Flecktones collaborate along with any other musical artists in their debut recording?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	Howard Levy left the band in December 1992.	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "JBK or Jansen Barbieri Karn, is the name by which former Japan and Rain Tree Crow band members Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and Mick Karn have recorded several albums of music, all released by their own Medium Productions label, between 1993 and 2001.\n\nAfter the band project Rain Tree Crow was disbanded in 1991, the remaining three members decided to create a recording label so they could continue to creatively collaborate as well with other artists, without any pressure from record companies. Also without a principal songwriter, like David Sylvian, they had the freedom to express their ideas and experiment. The band's music style was an experimental, ambient, progressive art rock with influence of electronic music. In their studio and live recordings the JBK also collaborated with Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson, guitarists Rob Dean, Aziz Ibrahim, David Torn, Sugizo, Masami Tsuchiya, saxophonist Theo Travis, and vocalists Zoe Niblett, Robby Aceto among others.\n\nDiscography\n Studio album\n1993 – Beginning to Melt (Medium Productions)\n1999 – _Ism (Medium)\n\n EPs\n1994 – Seed (Medium)\n2016 – Breakable Moons (Session Outtakes)\n\nLive album\n2001 – Playing in a Room with People (Medium)\n\n Compilation album\n 1999 – Medium Label Sampler (Medium)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJBK's Bandcamp\n\nArt rock musical groups\nBritish experimental rock groups\nBritish electronic music groups\nBritish ambient music groups", "Sugarsmack were an American alternative rock band based in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, formed by Hope Nicholls and Aaron Pitkin. The group was put together after Hope had departed from her previous band, Fetchin Bones, and had begun to write new music with Pitkin. They began to collaborate with guitarist Chris Chandek, who was eventually asked to join permanently along with his friend John Adamian and Deanna Gonzalez. They were popular locally, with their eclectic sound earning them comparisons to The Fall. The band debuted with Top Loader in 1993 and released their only major label album in 1998 with Tank Top City.\n\nDiscography\nStudio albums\nTop Loader (1993, Invisible)\nTank Top City (1998, Sire)\n\nEPs\nZsa Zsa (1992, Three AM)\nSpanish Riffs (1995, Yesha)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\nAlternative rock groups from North Carolina\nMusic of North Carolina\nMusical groups established in 1992\nMusical groups disestablished in 1998\nRock music groups from North Carolina\nSire Records artists" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (", "When was their debut album released?", "1989", "How did the album do on the music charts?", "received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album,", "What is the name of a song from the album?", "I don't know.", "Did they collaborate with any other musical artists in their recording?", "Howard Levy left the band in December 1992." ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	What is the name of another album that the band made?	6	What is the name of another album that the Flecktones made besides their debut?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "Third Eye Open is a 1992 album by American funk/rock supergroup Hardware. Hardware consists of lead guitarist Stevie Salas, P-Funk bassist Bootsy Collins, and drummer Buddy Miles, formerly of the Band of Gypsys. The album was produced by Bill Laswell and Salas, and was the first release to be part of Laswell's Black Arc Series, which includes Lord of the Harvest by Zillatron, Out of the Dark by O.G. Funk, and Under the 6 by Slave Master.\n\nAlbum history\nWhen the album was first released in Japan on the Polystar label, the band was called The Third Eye and the name of the album was \"Hardware\". When the album secured distribution in the U.S., it was found that another band had owned the name \"The Third Eye\". To avoid any further legal hassles, it was opted that the title of the album and the name of band would simply be switched, thus the name of the band would be Hardware and the title of the album became Third Eye Open.\n\nThe song \"Leakin'\" is a version of a track that appeared on Collins' 1988 album What's Bootsy Doin'?, which featured Salas playing guitar. On this album, the song is credited to Salas, whereas the previous version is credited to Collins, George Clinton and Trey Stone.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nStevie Salas – guitars, vocals\nBootsy Collins – space bass, vocals\nBuddy Miles – drums, fuzz bass, vocals\nGeorge Clinton, Gary \"Mudbone\" Cooper, Bernard Fowler – background vocals\nDavid Friendly, Vince McClean, Matt Stein – digital bollocks\n\nHardware (band) albums\n1992 albums\nAlbums produced by Bill Laswell\nRykodisc albums", "Cluain Tarbh is also the name of an Irish town from which the album takes its name.\n\nCluain Tarbh (Irish for Meadow of Bulls) is the Irish Celtic metal band Mael Mórdha's debut studio album. It was released in September 2005. The album name, along with the band name, can be written as the cover suggests, using Traditional Irish typography. The name would then be, \"Cluain Tarḃ.\"\n\nThe album contains eight tracks, the shortest being An Tús at 0:56 long, and the longest being I Am the Wench's Bane at 10:15 long. The album is a collection of popular and newly written material spanning several years in the band's history.\n\nThe cover art depicts the Battle of Clontarf or Cath Chluain Tarbh and this is the primary theme of the album's art and title track. The man on the left is a native Irish Gael, presumably fighting on the side of Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig, High King of Ireland. The man on the right appears to be a Viking, fighting on the side of the King of Leinster, Mael Mórdha. Both men are engaged in one-on-one combat against one another.\n\nThe album contains lyrics in both English and Irish.\n\nTrack listing\n\"An Tús\" (The Beginning) – 0:56\n\"Winds of One Thousand Winters\" – 5:51\n\"The Serpent and the Black Lake\" – 6:55\n\"Cluain Tarbh\" (Meadow of Bulls) – 6:45\n\"I Am the Wench's Bane\" – 10:15\n\"The Man All Hate to Love\" – 4:21\n\"Pauper of Souls\" – 5:02\n\"Realms of Insanity\" – 6:41\n\nSong information\n\nAn Tús\n\"An Tús\" is the introduction to the album. It fades in (and out) and is what sounds like a war tune with pipes. This is possibly mimicking what could be the lead-up the Battle of Clontarf, used as a metaphor for the entire album.\n\nWinds of One Thousand Winters\nThis song is the beginning of Mael Mórdha's signature Ceol Breatha Gaelach on the album. This is one of the sample tracks which can be heard on their website. As explained by the band:\n\n A complex mix of orchestration, layered guitars and drums, this tune expresses the misery felt by the ignorance expressed towards our past and the hope of a time when a king will rise to unite the clanns and revive our dying culture. The music is more textured than Cluain Tarbh as the theme deals with more subtle, deeper feelings.\n\nComposed: 2003\n\nThe Serpent and the Black Lake\nThis song is stated by the band to be about the \"Lure of Love\".\n\nComposed: 1997\n\nCluain Tarbh\nThe title track. This song tells the story of the Battle of Clontarf and can be considered the centrepiece of the album.\n\nFrom the band's website:\n This is about the lead up and aftermath of that most famous of battles fought in the Meadow of Bulls (Cluain Tarbh - Clontarf) on Good Friday 1014 between the then high king of Éire, Brian Boru and the king of Leinster, Mael Mórdha. The pace is fast and furious (for Mael Mórdha I mean) with pounding guitars and drums, whistle and bellowing vocals.\n\nComposed: 2003\n\nI Am the Wench's Bane\nThis is the longest song on the album. It is said to be \"on the relationship between the Wench and Her Bane\".\n\nComposed: 2001\n\nThe Man All Hate to Love\nFrom the band's website:\n If Cluain Tarbh is fast then this song is misery incarnate. Slow with lots of backing vocals, orchestration and miserable guitars. The title pretty much explains the theme of this little ditty. If you ever feel down listening to this song will make you realise that nothing could be as terrible as what is expressed here.\n\nComposed: 2003\n\nPauper of Souls\nThis song is stated to be about \"the merits of belief over non-belief\".\n\nComposed: 2001\n\nRealms of Insanity\nThis song is apparently \"open to interpretation\". No further information is given.\n\nComposed: 1996\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Mael Mórdha Website\n\n2005 debut albums\nMael Mórdha albums" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (", "When was their debut album released?", "1989", "How did the album do on the music charts?", "received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album,", "What is the name of a song from the album?", "I don't know.", "Did they collaborate with any other musical artists in their recording?", "Howard Levy left the band in December 1992.", "What is the name of another album that the band made?", "their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo" ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	What year was this album released?	7	What year was Flight of the Cosmic Hippo released?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	1991	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "Feel What U Feel is a children's album by American musician Lisa Loeb. The album was released on October 7, 2016, and the album's first single was \"Feel What U Feel.\" The album won Best Children's Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\nRelease \nThe album was announced on September 8, 2016 with the release of the lead single \"Feel What U Feel,\" featuring Craig Robinson. The album was then released by Furious Rose Productions on October 7, 2016 as an Amazon Music exclusive.\n\nPromotion \nLisa Loeb Embarked a small tour to promote the Children's album in the Fall of 2016 & Winter of 2017. Despite going on a children's tour, Lisa performed many of her \"Adult\" and \"Older\" songs. Lisa also constantly played her songs on \"Kids Place Live Radio\" for nearly 1 year after release.\n\nSingles \n\"Feel What U Feel\" was released as the album's lead single of September 8, 2016. The second single, \"Moon Star Pie (It's Gunna Be Alright)\" was released on October 7, 2016. The third single, \"Wanna Do Day\" ft. Ed Helms was released on January 12, 2017. The fourth and final single of the album, \"The Sky Is Always Blue\" was released on March 13, 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2016 albums\nChildren's music albums\nLisa Loeb albums", "Gloria! is the eighth studio album released by American singer-songwriter Gloria Estefan, released on June 2, 1998, by Epic Records.\n\nBackground\nGloria! is a dance and house album which was a departure from Estefan's previous works. Though dance elements had been featured in previous recordings, this was her first album to consist entirely of upbeat club music.\n\nThe album spawned four singles and one promotional single. \"Heaven's What I Feel\" was released as the first single from the album and peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. \"Oye!\" was released as the second single from the album, however, its release as a physical single was canceled in the United States. The song peaked at number 1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play, Hot Latin Tracks, and the Latin Tropical/Salsa Airplay charts. \"Don't Let This Moment End\" was released as the third single from the album and peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100. In Spain, \"Cuba Libre\" was released as a fourth single and \"Don't Stop\" was released promotionally. Though they did not feature any tracks from Gloria!, the extended plays \"Bailando!\" and \"Partytime!\" were released exclusively at Target stores as a form of promotion for the album.\n\nSeveral nominations were received for the album's singles. \"Heaven's What I Feel\" received a Grammy Music Award nomination for \"Best Dance Recording\", as did \"Don't Let This Moment End\" the following year. Estefan received a Grammy nomination for \"Best Video, Long Form\" for the album's supplementary DVD Don't Stop!. Estefan received the Billboard Latin Music Award for \"Best Latin Dance Club Play Track of the Year\" for \"Oye!\" and received an Alma Award for the music video for \"Heaven's What I Feel\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications and sales\n\nAccolades\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1998 albums\nGloria Estefan albums\nDance music albums by American artists\nAlbums produced by Emilio Estefan" ]
[ "Béla Fleck and the Flecktones", "Recording", "What did the Flecktones record?", "Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (", "When was their debut album released?", "1989", "How did the album do on the music charts?", "received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album,", "What is the name of a song from the album?", "I don't know.", "Did they collaborate with any other musical artists in their recording?", "Howard Levy left the band in December 1992.", "What is the name of another album that the band made?", "their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo", "What year was this album released?", "1991" ]	C_b8b6b140591c4b638529603045eab252_1	What is the name of a record company that they were with?	8	What is the name of a record company that the Flecktones were with?	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones	Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Blop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. In July 1996 the Flecktones released their fifth album, and first live album, Live Art. Devoted fans who had been seeing the band for several years were clamoring for an album to capture the experience of live Flecktones, and this album fit the bill. The trio took home a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 for the track "Sinister Minister". CANNOTANSWER	Warner Bros.,	Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is an American band that combines jazz and bluegrass music. The Flecktones formed in 1988 when Béla Fleck was invited to perform on the PBS TV series The Lonesome Pine Specials. The original members were Fleck on banjo, Victor Wooten on bass guitar, his brother Roy Wooten on Drumitar, and Howard Levy on harmonica and keyboards. After Levy's departure in 1992 the group continued as a trio for several years until recruiting Jeff Coffin in 1997 on saxophones. Coffin quit the group in 2010, and Levy rejoined in 2011. History Formation Near the end of his time with the New Grass Revival band, Fleck was invited to play for the Lonesome Pine Special on PBS in 1988, and he gathered a group of musicians to assist him. He had met Howard Levy the year before at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Victor Wooten auditioned over the phone and volunteered his brother Roy as a potential member. After the PBS performance, Fleck decided to keep the group together, calling it Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His compositions became more complex. The Flecktones merged bluegrass with jazz, presenting record store owners with the problem of where to stock the albums by these strange characters. The covers bore cartoons and titles like Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. Fleck was named after classical composer Bela Bartok and grew up in New York City, but he played electric banjo and was influenced by the Kentucky bluegrass of Earl Scruggs and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". Victor Wooten broke into jazz bass solos. Wooten's brother Roy called himself "Future Man", sometimes dressed like a pirate in concert, and played an odd-looking instrument known as the drumitar. Melodies were usually taken by Howard Levy, who played harmonica and keyboards. Their first video, "Sinister Minister", was in rotation at the networks VH-1, which played pop and adult contemporary music; BET, the Black Entertainment channel; and Country Music Television. They performed at jazz festivals with soul singer Stevie Wonder, blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt, and the Christian a cappella group Take 6. Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, were interested. Recording Their debut album, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (Warner Bros, 1989), received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, as did their second album, Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (Warner Bros., 1991), which also received a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the song "Blu-Bop". Their second album contained the Flecktones's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Their next album had another cartoon cover and the palindromic title UFO TOFU (Warner Bros., 1992). The song "Bonnie & Slyde" had Fleck playing banjo atypically with a slide, an idea suggested to him by slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. UFO Tofu would be the last album the Flecktones recorded with their original lineup until Rocket Science in 2011. Howard Levy left the band in December 1992. While the departure of Levy was tough for the band, it was not unexpected. During their 1992 tour it became evident to the band that Levy was not happy with the rigors of touring and wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. The remaining trio, consisting of Fleck and the Wooten brothers, recorded their fourth album, Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "'Once we started rehearsing, everything was fine,' said Fleck. 'We started finding ways to sound good, and it was real exciting.'" Without Levy, the Flecktones as usual spent most of 1993 on the road and released Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in September of that year. Return to quartet In April 1997, the Flecktones became a quartet again, as they added saxophone player Jeff Coffin to the mix. Coffin would remain in the band from 1997 until 2008. In June 1997, the Flecktones opened for the Dave Matthews Band. In July the Flecktones toured Europe and sat in on the second set of a Phish show in Lyon, France. This marked the second and final time that the Flecktones played with Phish. In June 1998, the Flecktones released their sixth album, and fifth studio album, Left of Cool. It represented a switch from previous Flecktones albums, as the band, according to critic Terri Horak, "jettisoned their self-imposed rule to only record what could be duplicated on live instruments." In July 2000, the Flecktones released their seventh album, Outbound, another studio album. The Flecktones' philosophy with this album was to do something different from everything they had done before. What makes Outbound unique is the way in which the Flecktones recorded the album. The quartet recorded each track on the album, then invited guest musicians to overdub vocals or instrumentation. Outbound guests include Jon Anderson from Yes, Shawn Colvin, and John Medeski, of Medeski, Martin and Wood, to name a few. Live at the Quick, which was also released as a DVD, is the band's eighth album and second live album. For fans of live Flecktones, this album, like Live Art, successfully captured the sound and feel of the Flecktones in concert. In February 2006, the band released their tenth album, The Hidden Land. As with every Flecktones album, they needed to change something from their last album. For The Hidden Land, the Flecktones didn't want any guest musicians. "'The truth is, the last few records are not what we are,' Fleck said. 'Obviously, we loved playing with those musicians, but if you keep on doing it, you become a gathering point rather than a group with its own identity.'" For the Flecktones to keep moving forward, they felt their music had to get back to the roots of the quartet. Reunion In June 2012, following another summer tour, the Flecktones announced their hiatus as a band. In January 2016, the Flecktones announced a short reunion tour scheduled for June 2016, confirming an appearance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16, 2016. In 2017, the band announced concerts for June–August 2017, and also confirmed a tour with Chick Corea Elektric Band in August 2017. Critical reception Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com called the Flecktones's music an "unclassifiable meld of jazz, progressive bluegrass, rock, classical, funk, and world music traditions," a style sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". Of the album Bela Fleck and the Flecktones critic Geoffrey Himes wrote, "Fleck's banjo-playing takes the quartet on wide tangents through the outer space of jazz improvisation and minimalist composition, but he always brings them back to the traditions of rural America." The quartet received attention for their musical innovations and invention, including praise from music critic Bill Kolhaase. However, he was critical of the band's lack of a drum kit, claiming that Wooten's "electronic beat seemed a bit muddy compared to the real thing". Cosmic Hippo was received favorably. Himes applauded their prodigious improvisatory ability. John Griffin of The Gazette also praised the group's ability to create such an individual style that "the whole of idea of style disappears." Mike Joyce, of The Washington Post was impressed by the Flecktones' ability to maintain a distinct voice. Joyce called a Flecktones show a "musical free-for-all, embracing the band's recorded material and venturing off into the great unknown." Jim Santella of the Buffalo News praised the band's mastery of styles and their ability to weave together complicated pieces. Santella even compared Fleck's playing to a "miniature Bach canon." Geoffrey Himes remarked that Left of Cool sounded too ordinary. In his negative review he wrote, "Unfortunately the Flecktones' first studio album in five years reveals that they've become a very ordinary band." Himes adds, "The four Flecktones are all marvelous musicians, and they come up with imaginative parts for the new album's 15 cuts. The overall concept, however has diminished into easy-to-digest pop-jazz, for which there is too much already." Hidden Land received mixed reviews. Critic Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Flecktones sound "hasn't aged well." Dan Ouelette of Billboard found Hidden Land to be "by far their best album." Ouelette was particularly impressed by the quartet's range of repertoire in this album. Jingle All the Way was well received. Geoffrey Himes praised the band for being able to package the Flecktones' complex sound into an easily digestible holiday album without having to compromise. Jeff Kelman of Jazz Times writes favorably about Rocket Science and Levy's reunion with the Flecktones, "Rocket Science recaptures everything that made the Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important during its first five years." Kelman particularly praised the album's writing and the interactions between Levy and Fleck. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek also gave Rocket Science a rave review, "Rocket Science fires on all cylinders and comes off as a fresh and exciting reintroduction to a newly energized Flecktones." Awards and honors Discography Studio albums Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1990) Flight of the Cosmic Hippo (1991) UFO Tofu (1992) Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1993) Left of Cool (1998) Outbound (2000) Little Worlds (2003) The Hidden Land (2006) Jingle All the Way (2008) Rocket Science (2011) Live albums Live Art (1996) Live at the Quick (2002) Compilation albums Greatest Hits of the 20th Century (1999) Band members Béla Fleck – banjos, synthesizers, guitar (1988–) Howard Levy – harmonicas, piano, keyboards, jaw harp (1988–1993, 2010–) Victor Wooten – bass guitars, double bass, cello (1988–) Roy Wooten ("Future Man") – drumitar, drums, percussion, electronic drums (1988–) Former Jeff Coffin – saxophones, flute, clarinet, synthesizers (1998–2010) Timeline References External links Jazz fusion ensembles Post-bop ensembles American jazz ensembles American bluegrass music groups American folk rock groups American folk musical groups American funk musical groups Funk rock musical groups Jam bands Musical groups from Nashville, Tennessee Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 1988 Space rock musical groups Columbia Records artists Rounder Records artists Warner Records artists Jazz musicians from Tennessee	true	[ "Codiscos (which is short for Compañía Colombiana de Discos, meaning \"Colombian Record Company\") is a record label headquartered in Medellín, Colombia. It was founded in 1950 by Alfredo Díez Montoya with the name Zeida Ltd, which is today the name of its popular label dedicated to tropical music. Along with Discos Fuentes, it is one of the oldest and largest record labels of Colombia.\n\nHistory\nIn 1958, it became an operational recording studio, with the aim of not only distributing, but also recording and encouraging the talents of Colombian authors, composers, arrangers and performers. Currently the company has three studios.\n\nCodiscos was in licensing agreements with U.S. Sonotone Records and Balboa Records that have since been discontinued.\n\nOn 1 August 2005, it opened a branch, called \"Codiscos Corp.\" in Miami, Florida.\n\nArtists\nCodiscos was the label of Juanes when he was part of the group Ekhymosis, when they signed their first record deal.\n\nCodiscos has been the record label for the following artists, among others:\n\nSee also\n Polen Records\n\nReferences\n\nColombian music\nColombian record labels\nRecord labels established in 1950", "Kaotiko is a punk group originate of Basque country.\n\nHistory \nThe band was formed at the end of 1999 in Salvatierra. Three of its members (Aguayo, Fonta and Aguayiko) come from the group Kaos Etiliko. In September 2001 they released their first album, \"Mundo kaotiko\". In April 2003 was published their second disc \"Raska y pierde\". With these two discs, on 17 April decided to record a DVD at the Azkena room of Vitoria, that finally published on 14 March.\nWith a new label come, \"Destino escrito\". In this disk collaborate \"el drogas\" (Barricada) in the songs \"Abuso\" and \"Correre\". La Miki, singer of No Relax, collaborated on second voice in \"Recuerdo\". The album is recorded in the studies Katarain, in Azkarate, between December 2005 and January 2006.\n\nOn 21 February 2008, Kaotiko published his fifth job, \"Adrenalina\", with the Oihuka label. This album contain the collaboration of Evaristo (La Polla, Gatillazo) and Banda Bassotti with them they recorded the theme \"Luna Rossa\".\n\nIn 2010 they released their album \"Reacciona\", with the record company \"Baga-Biga\".\n\nTheir last album is called \"E.H Calling\", they published in 2013. The Clash as regards for the title, paraphrasing \"London calling\", the group regressed with their sixth work. This is the first time that they have been so long without new material. They were used to produce two song per year, but this time they have been three years with out producing anything. They come back with the same members, the same discography Baga-Biga. They introduced their album like an absolute renewal, due to they changed the sound and the content comparing with the works which they had done before. Thanks to the production of Jimmy from Soziedad Alkoholika has known how to harden the material without losing the essence of accessibility, choruses and melodies.\n\nMembers \nFonta: bass and choirs\nAguayo: guitar\nJony: voice\nAguayiko: guitar and choirs\nXabi: drums and choirs\n\nDiscography\n\nMundo kaotiko \nPublished in 2001 with the record company Oihuka.\n\nRaska y pierde \nPublished in 2003 with the record company Oihuka.\n\nDirecto \nPublished in 2005 with the record company GOR Discos.\n\nDestino escrito \nPublished in 2006 with the record company Universal Music.\n\nAdrenalina \nPublished in 2008 with the record company Oihuka.\n\nReacciona \nPublished in 2010 with the record company Baga-Biga.\n\nE.H. Calling \nPublished in 2013 with the record company Baga-Biga.\n\nReferences\n\nBasque musicians\nSpanish punk rock groups" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer" ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	When did he become a songwriter?	1	When did Dan Brown become a songwriter?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist.	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	true	[ "The song Instant Pleasure was written by pop songwriter Seth Swirsky and was featured in Adam Sandler's highest-grossing film, Big Daddy (1999). In the movie, it was sung by Rufus Wainwright. The song was recorded by Seth Swirsky on his first solo album, Instant Pleasure, in 2004. The album won Best Pop Album at the 2005 L.A. Music Awards. Rockell also recorded the song for her 2002 album, Instant Pleasure.\n\nThe song has become a cult hit on many college campuses. The Appalachian State College newspaper asked, on October 17, 2006, whether \"college students have become more concerned with instant pleasure than a meaningful relationship,\" citing Swirsky's song. Drew University's student a cappella group, 36 Madison Avenue, did a version of the song at their Jamfest in 2007. Elon University's a cappella group also did a version of the song as did Colby College's a cappella group, Colby Megalomanics.\n\nReferences\n\nSongs written by Seth Swirsky\n2004 songs", "Sammy Johns is the first studio album by singer and songwriter Sammy Johns. The album featured Johns' most successful single, \"Chevy Van,\" which did not become a hit until two years after this album's release.\n\nIn 1996, Sammy Kershaw did a cover of \"Chevy Van\" on his album Politics, Religion and Her.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nLead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar: Sammy Johns\nDrums and Percussion: Jim Gordon\nBass: Larry Knechtel, Chuck Rainey\nGuitars: James Dutton, Art Munson, Deon Parks, Larry Knechtel \nPedal Steel Guitars: Buddy Emmons\nKeyboards: Larry Knechtel, Mike Melvoin\nBackground Vocals: Lamont Meredith, The Blackberries, Herb Pedersen\nHorns: Chuck Findley.\n\nCharts\n\nSingles\n\nReferences \n\n1973 albums" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer", "When did he become a songwriter?", "In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist." ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	What was his first published song?	2	What was Dan Brown's first published song?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective,	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	true	[ "\"What a Mouth (What a North and South)\" is a music hall song written by R. P. Weston in 1906 and first sung by Harry Champion. It is better known for the version recorded by Tommy Steele in 1960, which peaked at number 5 on the UK Singles Chart.\n\nEarly versions\nThe song was often performed by Harry Champion, and was published as sheet music by Francis, Day & Hunter in 1906 as one of Francis & Day's Album of Cockney Songs. The first commercially released recording was by The Two Bills from Bermondsey — Bill Burnham and Bill French — who were recorded by Peter Kennedy at \"The Cock & Monkey\" in Bermondsey on 13 February 1954. The 78 rpm record, Parlophone R 3953, was released in January 1955.\n\nTommy Steele version\n\nBackground\nSteele recorded a cover of \"What a Mouth\" as it was one of his father's favourite songs. Steele's father told him that he knew he would be successful if he \"became as successful as the Two Bills\". As with the rest of the album Get Happy with Tommy, \"What a Mouth\" was recorded live at Decca Studios.\n\nTrack listing\n7\": Decca / F 11245\n \"What a Mouth (What a North and South) – 2:45\n \"Kookaburra\" – 1:58\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1960 singles\nDecca Records singles\n1906 songs\nMusic hall songs\nSongs written by R. P. Weston", "\"What R U Waiting 4\" is a song originally performed by American actress and singer Lindsay Lohan, which was included on the Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen soundtrack in 2004; Australian singer-songwriter Tiffani Wood covered the song for her debut single, also released in 2004. The song was written by Matthew Gerrard, Bridget Benenate, and Steve Booker, whilst production was helmed by Tony Cvetkovski. \"What R U Waiting 4\" was Wood's first release following the disbandment of Australian girl group Bardot.\n\nProduction and recording\n \n\"What R U Waiting 4\" was written by Matthew Gerrard, Bridget Benenate, Steve Booker; it was produced by Tony Cvetkovski. Lindsay Lohan originally performed the song, which was included on the movie soundtrack Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, released in February 2004. In the same year, Tiffani Wood covered the song for her debut single, utilizing a relaxed version of the instrumental in Lohan's version. Wood's version was recorded by Cvetkovski, with Cvetkovski and Wood both responsible for additional vocal arrangements on the song.\n\nCvetkovski and David Hemming mixed the song in Australia, while David Macquarie handled the mastering of the song.\n\nComposition\nAccording to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, the song is written in the key of C major and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 92 beats per minute. Wood's vocal range spans two octaves, from G3 to E5.\n\nCover versions\n\"What R U Waiting 4\" was used in the film Bratz: Rock Angelz (2005), and featured on its respective soundtrack under the name \"Change the World\". American singer-songwriter Natalie Grant released a cover of the song on her fourth studio album Awaken (2005).\n\nTrack listings and formats\nCD single\n\"What R U Waiting 4\" – 3:28\n\"The Mirror\" – 3:49\n\"U & 1\" – 3:45\n\"What R U Waiting 4\" (Instrumental) – 3:24\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2004 singles\nLindsay Lohan songs\nSongs written by Matthew Gerrard\nSongs written by Bridget Benenate\nSongs written by Steve Booker (producer)\n2004 songs\nWarner Music Group singles" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer", "When did he become a songwriter?", "In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist.", "What was his first published song?", "in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective," ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	Was it successful?	3	Was Dan Brown's Perspective (CD) successful?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	sold a few hundred copies.	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	true	[ "Merry Legs (1911-1932) was a Tennessee Walking Horse mare who was given foundation registration for her influence as a broodmare. She was also a successful show horse.\n\nLife\nMerry Legs was foaled in April 1911. She was a bay with sabino markings. She was sired by the foundation stallion Black Allan F-1, out of the American Saddlebred mare Nell Dement, registration number F-3, and bred by the early breeder Albert Dement. She was a large mare at maturity, standing high and weighing . Merry Legs was a successful show horse; as a three-year-old, she won the stake class at the Tennessee State Fair. She was also successful as a broodmare, giving birth to 13 foals, among them the well-known Bud Allen, Last Chance, Major Allen, and Merry Boy. For her influence on the breed, she was given the foundation number F-4 when the TWHBEA was formed in 1935. She died in 1932.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual Tennessee Walking Horses\n1911 animal births\n1932 animal deaths", "The UCI Road World Championships – Men's team time trial was a world championship for road bicycle racing in the discipline of team time trial (TTT). It is organized by the world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).\n\nNational teams (1962–1994)\nA championship for national teams was introduced in 1962 and held until 1994. It was held annually, except that from 1972 onward, the TTT was not held in Olympic years. There were 4 riders per team on a route around 100 kilometres long. Italy is the most successful nation with seven victories.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMedals by nation\n\nMost successful riders\n\nUCI teams (2012–2018)\nThere was a long break until a championship for trade teams was introduced in 2012. There were 6 riders per team. The championship was held up to 2018.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMost successful teams\n\nMost successful riders\n\nReferences \n \n \n\n \nMen's Team Time Trial\nRecurring sporting events established in 1962\nUCI World Tour races\nMen's road bicycle races\nLists of UCI Road World Championships medalists\nRecurring sporting events disestablished in 2018" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer", "When did he become a songwriter?", "In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist.", "What was his first published song?", "in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective,", "Was it successful?", "sold a few hundred copies." ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	What did he write next?	4	What did Dan Brown write after Perspective?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons.	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	true	[ "This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) is the third studio album by American rock band Chevelle. Debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 based on nearly 90,000 copies sold in its first week, it charted higher than its predecessor, Wonder What's Next but did not exceed its debut position. The album did not manage to match its predecessor's commercial success, but was certified platinum. This Type of Thinking follows generally the same heavy style as Wonder What's Next with popular singles like \"Vitamin R\" and \"The Clincher\". It would be the first of two records produced by Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette. This was also the final album featuring bassist Joe Loeffler, who departed from the band in 2005.\n\nBackground and recording\nComing off a highly successful major label debut, Chevelle finishing touring on December 17, 2003. They set out to write a follow-up album from scratch at the onset of the following year in what drummer Sam Loeffler described as a different approach to writing. He also noted how the band felt significant pressure from their label to not simply match but topple the platinum success of Wonder What's Next. In a 2004 interview, Loeffler described the process of approaching This Type of Thinking:\n\"We went home for Christmas and after New Year's we went into the studio and we said, 'All right, we have to write a whole record in basically four months.' We had no songs, so we had to write that whole record and we ended up taking five months. We wanted to go heavy, we wanted to do a lot of double-bass drum, kind of syncopated rhythms, and we wanted to basically write songs that we could bob our heads to. That was sort of where we started. We're a heavy melodic rock band, that's what we like to write, and that's what we like to play. And that's what we did.\"\n\nThis time around, Chevelle opted to produce their own album with the help of Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette. This Type of Thinking would continue the balance of melody and heaviness of its predecessor. And much like the final track on Wonder What's Next, \"Bend the Bracket\" would be recorded simply as an acoustic demo for its unpolished presentation.\n\nCritical reception\n\nAllMusic editor Johnny Loftus observes the album as \"...flatly mixed, lost in depression, and obsessed with rewriting \"Sober\" for a new generation of lank-haired misunderstoods.\"\n\nMelodic calls it \"...a real quality album that you will never get bored of.\", praising the songs \"The Clincher\", \"Vitamin R (Leading Us Along)\" and \"Another Know It All\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nChevelle\n Pete Loeffler – guitar, vocals\n Joe Loeffler – bass, backing vocals\n Sam Loeffler – drums\n\nTechnical personnel\n Andy Wallace – mixing\n Ben Goldman – A&R\n Christian Lantry – photography\n Dave Holdredge – digital editing, drum programming, engineer\n Eddy Schreyer – mastering\n Farra Mathews – A&R\n Jef Moll – assistant\n Josh Wilbur – digital editing\n Katharina Fritsch – cover sculpture\n Kevin Dean – assistant\n Michael \"Elvis\" Baskette – engineer, producer\n Sean Evans – art direction\n Steve Sisco – assistant\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n2004 albums\nAlbums produced by Michael Baskette\nChevelle (band) albums\nEpic Records albums", "Consequences is an old parlour game in a similar vein to the Surrealist game exquisite corpse and Mad Libs.\n\nEach player is given a sheet of paper, and all are told to write down a word or phrase to fit a description (\"an animal\"), optionally with some extra words to make the story. Each player then folds the paper over to hide the most recent line, and hands it to the next person. At the end of the game, the stories are read out.\n\nExample game\nThe exact sequence varies, but an example sequence given in Everyman's Word Games is:\n An adjective\n A man's name\n The word met followed by an adjective\n A woman's name\n The word at followed by where they met\n The word to followed by what they went there for\n The words he wore followed by what he wore\n The words she wore followed by she wore\n What he did\n What she did\n The words and the consequence was followed by details of what happened as a result\n The words and the world said followed by what it said\n\nThe same reference book gives the following example of a completed story:\n\nVariations\nConsequences can also be played in a drawing version, sometimes known as picture consequences, where the first player draws the head, passes it unseen (by means of folding) to the second player who draws the body, then on to the third player who draws the legs. The composite person or creature is then revealed to all by unfolding the paper.\n\nAlthough Consequences originally is an analogue game there are digital versions available, some of which are slightly modified and adjusted to a digital roam. Examples: FoldingStory™, Unfolding Stories, etc.\n\nReferences\n\nComedy games\nPaper-and-pencil games\nParty games\nRandom text generation" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer", "When did he become a songwriter?", "In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist.", "What was his first published song?", "in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective,", "Was it successful?", "sold a few hundred copies.", "What did he write next?", "In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons." ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	Was it successful?	5	Was Angels & Demons by Dan Brown successful?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	sold a few hundred copies.	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	true	[ "Merry Legs (1911-1932) was a Tennessee Walking Horse mare who was given foundation registration for her influence as a broodmare. She was also a successful show horse.\n\nLife\nMerry Legs was foaled in April 1911. She was a bay with sabino markings. She was sired by the foundation stallion Black Allan F-1, out of the American Saddlebred mare Nell Dement, registration number F-3, and bred by the early breeder Albert Dement. She was a large mare at maturity, standing high and weighing . Merry Legs was a successful show horse; as a three-year-old, she won the stake class at the Tennessee State Fair. She was also successful as a broodmare, giving birth to 13 foals, among them the well-known Bud Allen, Last Chance, Major Allen, and Merry Boy. For her influence on the breed, she was given the foundation number F-4 when the TWHBEA was formed in 1935. She died in 1932.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual Tennessee Walking Horses\n1911 animal births\n1932 animal deaths", "The UCI Road World Championships – Men's team time trial was a world championship for road bicycle racing in the discipline of team time trial (TTT). It is organized by the world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).\n\nNational teams (1962–1994)\nA championship for national teams was introduced in 1962 and held until 1994. It was held annually, except that from 1972 onward, the TTT was not held in Olympic years. There were 4 riders per team on a route around 100 kilometres long. Italy is the most successful nation with seven victories.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMedals by nation\n\nMost successful riders\n\nUCI teams (2012–2018)\nThere was a long break until a championship for trade teams was introduced in 2012. There were 6 riders per team. The championship was held up to 2018.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMost successful teams\n\nMost successful riders\n\nReferences \n \n \n\n \nMen's Team Time Trial\nRecurring sporting events established in 1962\nUCI World Tour races\nMen's road bicycle races\nLists of UCI Road World Championships medalists\nRecurring sporting events disestablished in 2018" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer", "When did he become a songwriter?", "In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist.", "What was his first published song?", "in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective,", "Was it successful?", "sold a few hundred copies.", "What did he write next?", "In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons.", "Was it successful?", "I don't know." ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	Did he release any more music after that?	6	Did Dan Brown release any more music after Angels & Demons?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	false	[ "Sir Rosevelt is an American electronic dance music group consisting of Zac Brown, Niko Moon, and Ben Simonetti. The group, formed in 2016, has released one album for Elektra Records.\n\nHistory\nZac Brown, lead singer of Zac Brown Band, first announced Sir Rosevelt in 2016. The group's other members are Niko Moon, a frequent co-writer of Brown's, and Ben Simonetti, who provided programming for several tracks on Zac Brown Band's Jekyll + Hyde album. Initially, Brown did not reveal the other members of the group, nor did he provide any press after the release of their first song \"Sunday Finest\". Later in 2016, he announced the other members and released three more tracks. An album came in December 2017, with the single \"Somethin' 'Bout You\". Also preceding the album's release was another teaser track titled \"The Bravest\" which was used by the German television channel ZDF for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\nSingles\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican electronic dance music groups\nElektra Records artists\nMusical groups established in 2016\nZac Brown Band\nMusical groups from Nashville, Tennessee\n2016 establishments in Tennessee", "Shawn Lamont McLemore (May 3, 1967 – October 9, 2021) was an American gospel musician and leader of New Image. He started his music career in 1997 with the release of Wait on Him by Verity Records, and this placed on the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart. His second album, Sunday Morning: The Live Experience, came out in 2007 with Worldwide Music, yet this did not chart. The third album, Stand: The Shawn Mac Project, released in 2010 by Black Smoke Music alongside Worldwide Music, and this album did not chart. His fourth album, One Percent Miracle: Any Minute Now, was released in 2011 with Black Smoke Music along with Worldwide Music.\n\nEarly life\nMcLemore was born on May 3, 1967, in Los Angeles, California, as Shawn Lamont McLemore. He was reared in the church as a child.\n\nMusic career\nMcLemore's music recording career began in 1997 with the release of Wait on Him by Verity Records. The album reached no. 33 on the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart. His three subsequent albums failed to chart.\n\nIllness and death\nMcLemore died October 9, 2021, after a brief illness. He was 54. He is survived by his wife and a daughter.\n\nAlbum discography\n\n Wait On Him (Verity, 1997)\n Sunday Morning: The Live Experience (Worldwide Music, 2007)\t\n Stand: The Shawn Mac Project (Black Smoke/Worldwide Music, 2010)\t\n One Percent Miracle: Any Minute Now (Black Smoke/Worldwide Music, 2011)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n Cross Rhythms artist profile\n \n \n\n1967 births\n2021 deaths\nAfrican-American songwriters\nAfrican-American Christians\nAmerican gospel singers\nMusicians from Los Angeles\nSongwriters from California\n21st-century African-American people\n20th-century African-American people" ]
[ "Dan Brown", "Songwriter and pop singer", "When did he become a songwriter?", "In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist.", "What was his first published song?", "in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective,", "Was it successful?", "sold a few hundred copies.", "What did he write next?", "In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons.", "Was it successful?", "I don't know.", "Did he release any more music after that?", "Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher" ]	C_aa453416482b460293a102c8886bcaff_1	Where did he teach?	7	Where did Dan Brown teach in New Hampshire?	Dan Brown	After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K-8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. CANNOTANSWER	Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School,	Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017). His novels are treasure hunts which usually take place over a period of 24 hours. They feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. His books have been translated into 57 languages and, as of 2012, have sold over 200 million copies. Three of them, Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fiction, and have generated controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian and he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith." Early life Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music. Brown was raised an Episcopalian, and described his religious evolution in a 2009 interview: "I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion." When asked in the same interview about his then-current religious views, Brown replied:"The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The further you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, 'Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science.'" Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts. After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. Career Composer and singer After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. The music has been compared to Gary Glitter. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School. He also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met his wife, Blythe Newlon, who was the academy's Director of Artist Development. Though it was not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with people who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist". The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad, "All I Believe". Brown and his wife, Blythe, moved to, Rye, New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls. Brown has written a symphonic work titled Wild Symphony which is supplemented by a book of the same name. The book is illustrated by Hungarian artist Susan Batori which feature simple ambigrams for children, while the visuals trigger the corresponding music in an accompanying app. The music was recorded by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will receive its world concert premiere by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Writing While on vacation in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. He also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright to the book is attributed to Brown. In 1996 Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown. Brown subsequently wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, released in 2000 and 2001 respectively, the former of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is one of the most popular books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and, in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No. 12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. According to the article published in The Times, the estimated income of Brown after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the US, the UK and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The story takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of twelve hours, and features the Freemasons. The book also includes many elements that made The Da Vinci Code a number one best seller. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. Brown has adopted a relevant theme in some of his earlier work. Brown's fourth novel featuring Robert Langdon, Inferno is a mystery thriller novel released on May 14, 2013, by Doubleday. It ranked No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its release, has sold more than 1.4 million copies in the US alone. In a 2006 interview, Brown stated that he had ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon. Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, André Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels & Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy. In interviews, Brown has said his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial that showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher. Doubleday published his seventh book, Origin, on October 3, 2017. It is the fifth book in his Robert Langdon series. Reception Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph'. In his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, The Real Da Vinci Code, author and presenter Tony Robinson criticised both the accuracy of the author's historic research and the writing itself, considering the book to be not particularly well written. Much of the criticism was centered on Brown's claim in his preface that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate". Influences and habits In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, an attractive female sidekick/ love interest, foreign travel, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists who have a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place. Brown's work is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was highly influential in the field of screenwriting. Brown also claims to have based the character of Robert Langdon on Campbell. Director Alfred Hitchcock appears to be another key influence on Brown. Like Hitchcock, the writer favours suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly foes, glamorous foreign settings, key scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism and MacGuffins. Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective". Copyright infringement cases In August 2005 author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George B. Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God." In April 2006 Brown's publisher, Random House, won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown apparently alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment. On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly US$6 million. Brown has been sued twice in U.S. Federal courts by the author Jack Dunn who claims Brown copied a huge part of his book The Vatican Boys to write The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both lawsuits were not allowed to go to a jury trial. In 2017, in London, another claim was begun against Brown by Jack Dunn who claimed that justice was not served in the U.S. lawsuits. Charity work In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need". On April 14, 2011, Dan and his wife, Blythe Newlon Brown, created an eponymous scholarship fund to celebrate his 25th reunion from Amherst College, a permanently endowed scholarship fund at the college whose income provides financial aid to students there, with preference for incoming students with an interest in writing. On June 16, 2016, Dan Brown donated US$337,000 to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam to digitize a collection of ancient books. Personal life Brown and his wife, Blythe Newlon, were supporters of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. In 2019, after 21 years of marriage, Brown and his wife acrimoniously divorced, with the financial settlement still to be concluded due to Brown's alleged infidelities during the latter part of their marriage. Bibliography Stand-alone novels Digital Fortress (1998) Deception Point (2001) Wild Symphony (2020), illustrated children's book Robert Langdon series Angels & Demons (2000) The Da Vinci Code (2003) The Lost Symbol (2009) Inferno (2013) Origin (2017) Adaptations In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard. It was widely anticipated and launched the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 26% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest-grossing film of the year, pulling in US$750 million worldwide. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes. The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. , it has a 37% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Filmmakers expressed interest in adapting The Lost Symbol into a film as well. The screenplay was written by Danny Strong, with pre-production expected to begin in 2013. According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, but in July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016 release date with Ron Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Tom Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon. Inferno was released on October 28, 2016. Imagine Entertainment was announced in 2014 to produce a television series based on Digital Fortress, written by Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz. In 2021, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was adapted into a television series repositioned as an origin story for Brown's Robert Langdon character with Ashley Zukerman playing Langdon. It ran on the streaming service Peacock for one season. References External links Dan Brown Official Website 1964 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American mystery writers American male novelists American thriller writers Techno-thriller writers Amherst College alumni People from Exeter, New Hampshire Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Novelists from New Hampshire People involved in plagiarism controversies People from Rye, New Hampshire 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers	true	[ "\"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" is a song by American indie rock band Black Kids from their debut album, Partie Traumatic (2008). It was released as the band's debut single by Almost Gold Recordings on April 7, 2008, in the United Kingdom, and on May 27, 2008, in North America. The song peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart but did not chart in the United States. The demo version from the band's 2007 EP Wizard of Ahhhs placed at number 68 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Tracks of 2007.\n\nBackground\nAccording to lead singer Reggie Youngblood, the track was inspired by Jacksonville's dance party scene: he realized that usually, he would end up with girls who couldn't dance. The line \"You are the girl, that I've been dreaming of, ever since I was a little girl\" is based on an inside joke between Reggie and his sister Ali Youngblood where they would refer to wanting something as \"Ever since I was a little girl\".\n\nReception\nIn a review of Partie Traumatic on AllMusic, Tim Sendra called \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" one of the best songs on the album, writing that it \"kick[s] you in the gut with [its] energy and verve.\" Commercially, the single performed well in the United Kingdom, debuting at number 84 on April 6, 2008, and rising to its peak of number 11 the following week. It became a minor hit in the Flanders region of Belgium, reaching number 10 on the Ultratip listing.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs were written by Black Kids except where noted.\n\n7-inch single (pink vinyl)\nA. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB. \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUK 12-inch single (white vinyl)\nA1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\nB1. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\nB2. \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix – Dub Version) – 3:46\n\nCD single and EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n\nUS and Canadian digital download\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:40\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:44\n\nUK digital download EP\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" – 3:39\n \"You Turn Me On\" – 2:50\n \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" – 2:26\n \"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You\" (The Twelves Remix) – 3:46\n\nPersonnel\n Owen Holmes – bass guitar\n Kevin Snow – drums\n Dawn Watley – keyboards and vocals\n Ali Youngblood – keyboards and vocals\n Reggie Youngblood – guitar and vocals\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Black Kids website\n\n2008 debut singles\n2008 songs\nBlack Kids songs\nSongs about dancing", "Teach First (also Teach First Cymru) is a social enterprise registered as a charity which aims to address educational disadvantage in England and Wales. Teach First coordinates an employment-based teaching training programme whereby participants achieve Qualified Teacher Status through the participation in a two-year training programme that involves the completion of a PGDE along with wider leadership skills training and an optional master's degree.\n\nTrainees are placed at participating primary and secondary schools where they commit to stay for the duration of the 2-year training programme. Eligible schools are those where more than half of the pupils come from the poorest 30% of families according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Following completion of the two-year programme, participants become Teach First ambassadors. This network of ambassadors aims to address educational disadvantage either in school or in other sectors.\n\nTeach First is the largest recruiter of graduates in the United Kingdom, and was ranked 2nd only to PwC in The Times annual Top 100 Graduate Employers list in 2014 and 2015.\n\nThe Teach First scheme has been met with some controversy and criticism since its inception, which has impeded its planned expansion into Scotland.\n\nIn June 2020 Teach First dropped 120 trainees due to lack of training opportunities because of COVID-19, sending out a generic email. Some prospective trainees has already given up steady jobs in order to take up placements.\n\nHistory\nIn the summer of 2001 Charles, Prince of Wales as president of Business in the Community hosted a group of business leaders and headteachers. At this event Ian Davis of McKinsey and Company agreed to produce a report on the question of why inner-London Schools were not doing as well as they could do, and what business could do to contribute to the improvement of London schools for the event organisers and London First. The report highlighted the problems with the quality of London's schools, particularly in inner London. It confirmed the link between poverty and educational outcomes and noted that the proportion of pupils on Free school meals in inner London was three times the national average. The report also highlighted how the scale of pupil mobility was inhibiting the progress of many young people. Fifteen per cent of students attending inner London schools were entering school, leaving school or changing schools during the school year. This cycle was affecting student performance at age 16.\n\nIn terms of potential solutions McKinsey & Co. reinforced the value of a school being well led by a high quality head teacher, but also highlighted the importance of the quality of classroom teaching. The number of excellent teachers was, they reported, one of the strongest predictors of improved pupil performance, especially in challenging schools. Good teachers made an impact on pupil performance because they:\n\n Increased pupil motivation\n Improved knowledge transfer\n Provided good role models\n Gave more individual support to pupils\n Monitored pupils’ achievements systematically\n\nHowever, the high vacancy and turnover rates in London were making it difficult to build a group of skilled teachers. Salary levels were also part of the problem – but only a small part of it. Poor management, inadequate resources, long hours, taxing duties, poor student behaviour and a lack of professional opportunities also contributed to the large numbers of teachers leaving the profession. Building on the experience of Teach for America (which had been formed in 1990) McKinsey & Co. proposed creating a programme to recruit and train the best and brightest graduates and place them in London's disadvantaged and underperforming schools.\n\nOne of the consultants involved in compiling the report, Brett Wigdortz, set about developing a business plan for a Teach for America style enterprise in London. In February 2002 Brett took a six-month sabbatical from McKinsey to develop a business plan for what was tentatively called Teach for London before it evolved to become Teach First.\n\nTeach First officially launched in July 2002, in Canary Wharf with a team of 11 committed employees led by Brett Wigdortz as CEO and Stephen O’Brien CBE & George Iacobescu CBE as co-chairs of the Board of Trustees. Canary Wharf Group and Citi become the first corporate supporters of Teach First.\n\nTeach First's first cohort of participants started to teach in 45 secondary schools in London. Haling Manor High School in Croydon was the first school to sign up to Teach First. It was based solely in London until September 2006 when it expanded into Greater Manchester schools.\n\nIn 2007, Teach First collaborated with Teach for America to create Teach for All, a global network of independent social enterprises that are working to expand educational opportunity in their nations.\n\nRecruitment process\nTo be eligible to apply to the Teach First Leadership Development Programme candidates need to have: \n a 2.1 degree or above.\n a degree or A-levels that satisfies Teach First's subject dependent requirements.\n Grade C (or equivalent) in GCSE Maths and English (Grade C in one Science GCSE is also required for Primary teaching eligibility)/ Grade B (or equivalent) in GCSE Maths and English to teach in Wales.\n flexibility to teach within any of the Teach First regions.\n\nThe recruitment process begins by registering interest and then submitting an online application (within 12 weeks). If the online application is successful, candidates are invited to attend a one-day assessment centre consisting of a competency-based interview, a group case study exercise and the delivery of a sample teaching lesson. There are eight competencies assessed throughout the recruitment process. If successful at the assessment centre, candidates are then made a conditional offer to join Teach First dependent on a subject knowledge assessment and classroom observation period.\n\nTeach First Programme\nParticipants teach in the same school throughout the two years. In the first year, participants work towards a PGCE whilst undertaking around 90% of a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) timetable, In their second year participants work as NQTs. Trainees are placed at participating primary and secondary schools where they commit to stay for the duration of the training programme. Eligible schools are those where more than half of the pupils come from the poorest 30% of families according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Participants are paid and employed by the schools they are placed at.\n\nFollowing completion of the two-year programme, participants become Teach First ambassadors. This network of ambassadors aims to address educational disadvantage either in school or in other sectors.\n\nSummer Institute\nBefore entering the classroom, participants attend a five-week Summer Institute. Four weeks of this is spent in their region and the final week at a residential course where they learn about the organisation's mission and develop their understanding of educational theory and practice to prepare them to begin teaching in the following September. Participants spend time training in the region in which they will teach, usually with an observation period in the school they will join after the summer. They then attend a residential course together as an entire cohort.\n\nSupport\nParticipants receive support in many areas of their training:\n\nTutors\nAll participants work with one of Teach First's university partners towards a PGDE and QTS (qualified teacher status) during their first year teaching.\n\nMentors \nPartner schools allocate mentors to assist their trainee's development as a teacher.\n\nParticipant Development Leads \nTeach First Participant Development Leads are all qualified teachers with leadership experience. They support and challenge participants throughout the two years.\n\nLeadership Development\nThroughout their two years teaching, participants have access to a range of leadership development opportunities.\nThe two-year Leadership Development programme is designed to enable participants to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes for use inside and outside the classroom. This training is delivered through workshops, panel events and one to one coaching. For example, participants have access to qualified teacher-led training sessions to provide them with tools and strategies they can apply in their classrooms. They will also attend workshops and reflective seminars to help them develop a good understanding of their strengths and areas for development. In addition, they will have the opportunity to have a coach to help them overcome the challenges they face, as well as business school training to teach them the fundamental aspects of business theory and practice which they can apply to their school context.\n\nParticipants also have the opportunity to apply to undertake a one-three week mini-internship during the school holidays – known as a Summer Project. These provide an opportunity to join one of Teach First's supporting or partner organisations to complete or contribute to a short-term goal or objective.\n\nRecruits also have the opportunity to complete a master's degree, starting in their second year on the programme through various partner universities.\n\nExpansion\n\nRegional\nTeach First was initially based solely in London, as part of the London Challenge initiative, until September 2006 when it expanded into Greater Manchester schools. The programme was subsequently extended to cover a total of 11 local areas: East Midlands, London, North East, North West, South Coast, South East, South West, East of England, West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber.\n\nIn Wales Teach First was given a three-year contract by the Welsh Government to pilot a graduate training programme for three years from 2013 as Teach First Cymru.\n\nTeach First has not been established in Scotland, in 2013 the charity met with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (the independent body for teaching in Scotland) but was told the recruits would not be permitted to teach in Scottish schools, as the General Council will only allow those already holding teaching certificates to teach. The Educational Institute of Scotland opposed the expansion of Teach First into the country with The Herald describing Teach First as controversial. In 2017 Scottish universities offering teacher training unanimously agreed to not work with Teach First. In light of the Scottish Government putting out to tender a fast-track teacher training scheme.\n\nCohort\nSince launching in 2002, Teach First has placed increasing numbers of participants in schools each year.\n\nTraining provision\nTeach First expanded from recruiting for secondary school teaching into recruiting primary teachers in 2011.\n\nRecruitment\nTeach First is increasingly seen as attractive to young professionals and career changers with 22% of applicants in 2014 coming from these backgrounds.\nTeach First launched a new campaign in October 2015 which focuses less on the social reward aspects of teaching and more on the challenge of a teaching career, following research by the Behavioural Insights Team.\n\nSimilar schemes \nSchool Direct and School-Centred Initial Teacher Training are school based schemes where participants can earn a salary during training. The Teach First model has also been applied in other areas of public sector recruitment with Frontline for children's social work, Think Ahead for mental-health social work, Police Now a two-year graduate leadership programme of the Metropolitan Police, and Unlocked for prison officers.\n\nAlumni ('Ambassadors') \nAs of 2017, 26 ambassadors of the programme were in Head Teacher roles and 36 social enterprises had been founded by ambassadors. Seventeen of these are recognised as official 'Innovation Partners' including The Access Project, Boromi, The Brilliant Club, CPDBee, The Difference, Enabling Enterprise, First Story, Franklin Scholars, Frontline, Future Frontiers, The Grub Club, Hackney Pirates, Jamie's Farm, Maths with Parents, MeeTwo, Right to Succeed and Thinking Reading.\n\nNotable alumni of Teach First include:\n Josh MacAlister (2009 ambassador) - Founder and CEO of Frontline social work charity\n Alex Kelly (2005 ambassador) - Founder of The Access Project, Co-Founder and CEO of Unifrog\n Stephanie Peacock (2010 ambassador) - Member of Parliament (MP) for Barnsley East \n William Wragg (2014 ambassador) - Member of Parliament (MP) for Hazel Grove\n\nCriticism \n\nAs part of the Teach For All network, Teach First is subject to many of the same criticisms levelled at its main partner organisation Teach for America, and offshoots such as Teach First Norway and Teach First New Zealand. Criticisms have been raised about the cost effectiveness of Teach First, with training costs higher per participant when compared to other training routes.\n\nTeach First asks for the graduates it recruits to give two years of teaching, and so retention rates for Teach First are lower than other routes into teaching, forty percent of Teach First participants stay in teaching after 5 years compared to much higher percentages (ranging from 62 to 70%) coming through PGCE and GTP programmes. It is anticipated and accepted that many of them will go on to careers in other sectors (hence the name, Teach First), also described as \"teach first, then get a better job\". The higher turnover rate and rapidly increasing cohort size of Teach First has been alleged as allowing schools to reduce their costs by employing teaching staff at unqualified teacher pay scales, it has been alleged that Teach First has been targeted by some academy school chains because of this.\n\nTeach First has been accused of elitism, and has also been accused of being biased to middle-class applicants within the application process. Teach First participants interviewed as part of an evaluation were predominantly middle‐class, possessing social and cultural capital which had facilitated their access to the Teach First scheme. A Study by London Metropolitan University found some recruits displayed patronising middle-class attitudes, coupled with a belief that they as graduates of prestigious universities, have much to offer but nothing to learn from low-income communities.\n\nIn 2009 it was reported that Teach First participants were being placed in schools where GCSE grades were above the local and national averages, and not in the worst performing secondary schools. Education Data Surveys analysed the results of all the schools involved in Teach First and found 15 of the 79 London secondaries (19 per cent) had GCSE achievements above their local authority average, and 17 schools had results above the national average. In the North West, five Teach First schools, or 23 per cent, had exam results which were the same or better than the local authority average. In the Midlands, results at five schools, or 18 per cent, were the same or better than the local authority average and two had results at or above the national average, raising the question of why schools with GCSE results up to 80 and 70 per cent were taking part.\n\nIn response Teach First said that exam results were not the \"whole story\" of the initiative, and the number of children claiming free school meals was as important in selecting schools to be involved. Stating \"Teach First selects the schools into which it places exceptional graduates through consideration of a range of criteria that indicate the level of challenge experienced at the school, including the percentage of free schools meals, the exam results at GCSE, staff turnover and the difficulties experienced by schools in recruiting new teachers.\"\n\nTeach First's relationship with businesses and deferred entry schemes has opened it to suggestions that it operates as an elite graduate scheme for them to recruit from.\n\nTeach First has also been said to place too much emphasis on schools in London, to where it places 40% of its recruits. It has been subject to criticism that London and larger cities are able to attract the best graduates, but coastal and rural communities struggle to attract these graduates. Brett Wigdortz in response said \"We made the same mistake many implementations make – starting in the place where it's easiest to implement things, the big cities, and taking a while to get to the areas which really need it\".\n\nThe Teach First model whereby teachers enter the classroom after only a six-week summer camp can leave recruits feeling their in-class levels of support as variable. A Teach First recruit has said the experience left her feeling expendable, saying the Teach First leadership were more focussed on expansion rather than the experience of recruits in a \"survival of the fittest\" atmosphere. Teach First had a 92% retention rate of recruits in 2012, with the recruit earning a \"good\" teacher label by observers.\n\nThe so-called \"London effect\" where the capital has seen a turnaround in educational achievement since the millennium, which has seen Teach First (and other interventions such as the London Challenge and the rise of academies) being credited with the turnaround of education in London, has been analysed in an academic study as coming instead from gradual improvements in primary education in the capital.\n\nTeach First has been supported by politicians of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.\n\nIn 2017 the Journalist and director of the New Schools Network Toby Young attended a social mobility summit hosted by Teach First, who asked him to write a blog for them. Teach First disagreed with the content of the work submitted by Young, and published it with a rebuttal from another author working in the field. Teach First then decided that they were in error to publish the blog, even with a rebuttal, and removed it as being against their values and vision. Stating that they did not want to act as a platform for the views contained therein. Toby Young claimed that he only found out about this decision via Twitter, and questioned why Teach First published it in the first place, stating that he felt as though he had been censored by the charity. A third party broadly agreed with Young's blog points, but found some merit in the rebuttal. Teach First apologised to Young and he accepted their apology.\n\nSee also\n Tough Young Teachers – a BBC documentary following graduates on the Teach First programme\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Teach First Official Website\n\nOrganizations established in 2002\nEducational organisations based in the United Kingdom\nUnited Kingdom educational programs\nCharities based in London\n2002 establishments in the United Kingdom" ]

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